Firestorm
by PureWaterLily
Summary: Three orphans with a penchant for psychological warfare, violent rampages, and chronic backstabbing. And they are arguably the best team Konoha ever produced. Dark!Canon. Sakura-centric.
1. Haruno Sakura!

**A/N:** Dear new readers, please be aware that the reviews for this story may contain spoilers. There is an option to filter them by chapter, if you so wish. Thank you and enjoy!

.

"Haruno Sakura, come back here right now!"

Gritting her teeth, Sakura stomped down the stairs and made a beeline for the downtown Konoha streets.

"Sakura!"

She blocked out her mother's call.

It was past twilight. Whatever pedestrians had scattered off, granting her free rampage across the intersections. After a kilo's stretch, she collapsed on a bench in front of the public library.

She pressed her forehead against her knees. Stupid, stupid parents. Every girl wore earrings, Ino included. _Their_ parents understood the importance of beauty in success and self-esteem. _Their_ parents dedicated the time teach them how to walk gracefully, speak sweetly, and dress cutely, to raise them with skills to move up the social ladder.

Sakura's parents did _not_ understand. They did not understand why Sakura would cry whenever her mom sheared her hair with a pair of kitchen scissors, or why she threw a fit at leftovers from the discount rack. They did not understand why Sakura would cringe at their crass mannerisms or embarrassing jokes. They did not understand the pain of an outcast, nor the difficulty to compare to clan kids, who naturally excelled and lived in riches. Finally, they did not understand what it meant to fall in love with one of them.

Just for once, Sakura wanted to be given a chance. There had been a pair of silver butterfly earrings on display in the marketplace. After a year of begging, her parents promised that if she kept good grades, she could get the earrings for her next birthday.

Sakura kept true to her side of the bargain. So on her tenth birthday, she had no appetite, jumping for her earrings. However, when she opened the box, in the place of silver butterflies were ugly stars. To make it worse, they were big and plastic, like someone taped buttons on her ears.

Her parents were happy though. Kizashi clapped his hands in drunken approval, and Mebuki jokingly bet that Sakura would not last three days before the earrings were forgotten in the drawer.

_No_. Had Sakura gotten her butterflies, she would wear them faithfully every day. Instead, she was made a fool.

The box had slammed against the kitchen floor.

_"Sakura!" _Mebuki rose up from her chair, the humor gone from her voice._"What is wrong with you!"_

_"What's wrong with me? What's wrong with you! Is that what I said I wanted? I wanted the Kairu Silver Butterflies!"_

_"You're not piercing your ears. You wanted earrings, and these can be clipped on."_

_"I don't WANT clip-ons! I NEVER wanted clip-ons!" _Sakura banged her fists on the table hard enough for the bowls to clatter.

_"Now, now, give them a chance," _Kizashi said. _"Didn't you always want to be one of those Sailor Star girls on TV? With them, you look just like one!"_

He laughed. Sakura could only stare at him. Her hands itched to throw a chopstick. _"NO! No, you retard!"_

_"Sakura! Don't you speak to your father like that!"_

_"Screw you!"_

Konoha nights were chilly. Shivering, Sakura buried deeper into herself.

She heard the flip-flop of slippers approach her bench.

"There's my princess."

"Go away."

Kizashi knelt down, patting his daughter's back. "Come on, don't get grumpy on your birthday."

"Well I am, no thanks to you," she spat, swatting away his touch.

"You know, if you end up catching a cold, you'll be stuck with more chicken feet soup."

He chuckled until he caught Sakura's despondent expression. Sighing, he joined her on the bench. "Sakura, your mother is right-"

Sakura reacted violently. "Of course! Side with her! You always do!" She felt her energy leave her. "You always do..." Her voice cracked, and she fought back a new stream of tears.

Kizashi's face slipped, his gaze fallen on the crumbled mess beside him. His daughter was prone to emotional outbursts over every little thing. However, he could tell this time was different. For months, Sakura sat through practice after practice, afternoon to night, the books stacking in piles in her room. She studied with the fervor of religious devotion, of a little girl in love. She truly wanted the earrings.

Sakura was so consumed by misery that she nearly missed the object dangling before her.

"Otou-san?"

"Ah ne, I saved it for your twentieth birthday." Kizashi smiled, dropping a necklace into her palm. "It can be yours now if you promise to not cry anymore. I know they're not earrings but..."

Under the street light glinted a crystallized cherry blossom flower, simple and geometric. She never expected her tasteless parents to have jewelry this beautiful.

Her heart skipped at the prospect of Sasuke seeing her with it. He would notice her. Maybe they could even date. A warmth fluttered in her chest and tinted her cheeks, as she thought of the idea of them together at a table in Dangoya, their fingers intertwined.

She closed her palm. Appeased with the compromise, she tailed her father back home.

"Well, who's excited for cake?" Kizashi exclaimed, swinging the main door open.

Behind, Sakura grumbled on her climb up the stairs. She heard him announce, "Daughter retrieval mission, _accomplished!_" followed by another round of hearty laughs. "Let's-"

Her hand barely touched her sandal when she heard a crash from the kitchen.

"Otou-san-?"

She froze.

The kitchen table had splintered in the middle, with two broken legs that sent all plates top-sided on the floor. Crawling under the vegetables was a contrasting red.

Her gaze flickered across the room, unable to stop seeing more speckles of red on the chair seats, the cabinets, the bare forearm sprawled parallel to the floorboards. It was even on her birthday cake, half of the dessert smashed by scalp and hair.

Sakura's heart stopped when she caught a movement in her father's eye. His lips twitched.

Before Kizashi could form a word, a boot stepped on his head. Gulps of blood bubbled into the cake as the sword pulled out of his neck, as fresh and gleaming as a newborn baby.

"Much better."

Sakura wanted to scream. Run. Faint.

Instead, she stood still. From beginning to end, she stood still, letting the murderer strut around her home in an appreciative hum.

.

"... n-normal weight, I guess."

"Hair?"

"He was bald."

"Eye color?"

"I- I don't know. He was wearing um, like one of those... those stage masks."

"So you never saw his face?"

Sakura shook her head.

"Did you hear his voice?"

"Yes, it was kind of raspy."

"What did he say?"

There was silence.

"Sakura-chan?"

Sakura snapped out of her daze and shook her head. "I don't remember."

Once the officer finished his questioning, he pocketed his notebook. At the door, he sent the girl a small, awkward smile. "It's going to be okay." It was a terrible lie.

Raidō closed the door behind him, then stared at the chaos that was the makeshift police station, complete with tangled telephone lines and tipping paperwork.

Two summers ago, there once stood a respected military police force, with mastermind detectives, an elite capture team, and the best evidence crew that blood can produce. Then some psycho kid just had to kill them all.

Shortly after the Uchiha massacre was a tumbleweed of whispers, excitement, and fervor. Waves of freshly vested chūnin had wanted in on the manhunt, because the bounty on the head of Uchiha Itachi was enough to cruise in sea of money.

Unfortunately, Raidō hopped on the bandwagon too late. He had been recruited to face the _long_-term consequences, starting with a painful attempt to scavenge all law and order. Crime rates had spiked, and while many of the temporary officers were excellent soldiers, few were trained to work within a bureaucracy. Neither did they have the discipline.

With a sigh, Raidō tossed his notebook on the mess of paperwork by Genma's kicked up feet.

Genma peeked up from his file. "Well?"

"Burglary turned homicide."

"Burglary," Genma repeated with a raise of his brow. "You positive? I've checked up on this Haruno family. They're not broke, but they don't have much for show either."

"The girl said the murderer had a backpack. He took the family's savings from under the sink and more stuff from the parent's room. Sounds like burglary to me."

"Why burn the place down?"

After a trainwreck of cases, Raidō honestly did not want to think any deeper. "Probably to get rid of evidence. From what I can tell, we're not dealing with a shinobi here. There was noise and a bloody mess. He used a slicing-specific sword to stab. And..."

"And what?"

Raidō averted his gaze, thumbing through the tabs of his binder. "And he let the girl live." While shinobi knew better.

They sat in a background of staple punches and telephone rings. Finally, Genma swiveled in his chair and returned to his file. "Non-shinobi, huh. Neighbors will be relieved."

Sakura spent another day in the police station to identify the type of mask. Afterward, she was no further use and returned to school. She took her usual seat, blankly listening to her sensei tap the chalkboard and read sections on history.

"... Sakura. Haruno Sakura!"

Her head snapped up. "Sensei?"

Iruka sent a look that hushed giggles across the classroom. "Sakura, the next passage, if you may."

On reflex, she stood up, only to realize she had no book. She trembled in place until someone passed a book to her. Speechless, she watched Sasuke face the front again.

She broke the croak in her voice and read.

"Thank you, Sakura. Don't forget your materials next time."

Sakura reseated, relieved that Iruka did not reprimand her further.

Her relief was short-lived. The police officer handling her case reassured her that the governmental housing administration will find her residence. He never told her where to go in the meantime. After school ended, she uneasily filed out with the rest of the students.

Out of options, she sat at the swing set, fatigued. Her hair was greasy and tangled, with specks of dandruff. Her clothes held a nauseous stench of sour copper and explosive powder. She barely slept in the past two days, nor eaten since the officer bought her crackers from a vending machine.

The swing creaked under the sway of her weight. Her fingers grew numb as metal chains bit into her palm.

The shadow stretched longer from the tip of her shoes. The burglar should have killed her too. It would have been better than dying like this.

"Ano, Sakura, are you okay?"

The voice was so tiny that Sakura almost did not recognize the speaker.

Averting her gaze, Ino pulled a woolen scarf to her nose. "I heard what happened," she mumbled. "My parents said it's okay for you to sleep over... if you want."

In that moment, Sakura forgot everything, how she swore off her friendship with Ino, how they fought and threw insults every day. She buried in the arms of her best friend and cried until she could cry no more.

.

In the middle of the night, Ino peered down her bed. A nest of pink hair peeked out the futon on the floor, soft sobs muffled into the pillow. For days, Sakura had curled against her side, jumpy at every change in shadow, clutching her arm so tight that Ino lost circulation.

Then, out of nowhere, the stubborn girl insisted she could sleep alone. Ino was not sure who or what prompted the change, but Sakura was not ready for it. With a sigh, Ino pulled the chain to her lamp and scooped her friend into her bed, pulling the covers over the both of them. Sakura made a defiant whimper. Ino pretended it was gratitude.

By morning, Ino had ran off to the guest shower, leaving Sakura in quiet contemplation of Ino's bathroom. Like the bedroom, there hung floral perfume in the air, with clean marble tiles and walls of pressed lilies. Before the vanity were clusters of moisturizer, jewelry pieces, and colored glass bottles that caught the light.

It was so different from the claustrophobic bathroom of her former home, of discolored cabinets and stable household products. Sakura stared at the glint of earrings twirling off the stand.

"Maa Sakura, are you ready-" Ino stopped.

Sakura jumped, clutching a strand of ribbon stolen from the basket. Ino softened her expression.

Ino's mother hummed into her breakfast tea. "Sakura-chan, why don't you accompany me to the market today."

Ino brightened at the idea, only to pout at the reminder of her own ninjutsu lesson with father.

There was a regal type of authority wherever Ino's mother walked, the type that made people hesitate to disagree. Unlike with her own mother, Sakura made no complaints in helping carry the bags of grocery, no matter how numerous or heavy. The trip lasted until afternoon, and by then, her shoulders ached and pink lines marked her wrists.

As reward for her assistance, she was given a subtle smile. "I have found all I need. But what would you like, Sakura-chan?"

They stood in the busiest intersection, where garment vendors pulled out lovely spring fabrics and the jewelry merchants showcased their finest gems. In the window of the game store stood paint kits and dolls made of porcelain. The gourmet cafe next door brought out a fresh cake.

Sakura spun around in confusion, lost in the colors and noise. A familiar door chime stopped her still. Weakly, she pointed to the shop in the far corner.

Ino's mother followed her to the bookstore, where with shaking hands Sakura pulled out one textbook after another from the shelves. She reached for blank paper workbooks and a box of wooden pencils. Finally, she took a backpack.

It was large and brown, with double buckles in the middle. It was tailored for boys. Ino's mother had frowned in disapproval when Mebuki had grabbed something similar.

"_Eh, what do you think? She'll love it. And look, on sale!"_

She had been lost to Mebuki's excitement. As subtle as possible, she nodded in the direction of a white bag, with red lace on the side and a heart clip. "_I heard that brand was popular with the young girls."_

Mebuki paused at the bag on display. She kept her smile. "_Nah, I think my Sakura-chan will love this one._"

Sakura froze at the hand on her shoulder.

"Sakura-chan, have you thought about that one?"

Briefly, her eyes flickered over to the Sailor Stars backpack collection, where two school girls giggled and fawned in admiration. Her gaze fell back down to the backpack in her hands. "N-no, thank you, this is fine, thank you, oba-san."

Ino came back from training, excited to see the goods, only to find her friend perched by the windowsill, working on Monday's homework.

.

Eight hours at the Academy. Eight hours at home. Eight hours asleep. That was the cycle of her life. Even if she lost one part of it, she was determined to protect the other two parts.

From the sidelines, Ino watched in worry as Sakura pretended nothing had changed. During the first week, Iruka expressed disapproval over Sakura's recent slack. Ino's friends kept asking why she was nice to Sakura again. Ino bit her lips and kept her discretion. She did not intend start gossip, not when her friend felt frailer than damp rice paper.

No one knew.

Everyone knew when Sasuke lost his parents. He received an official condolence from the school and the Hokage. He received a month's pardon as part of his recovery, and teachers warned all students to show sensitivity and respect. The wealthiest families of the village even offered to welcome him in as one of their own. With Sasuke, the news had been loud and fast.

Ino felt that it would be better if more people understood and sympathized with Sakura too.

Months later, a rumor crept through the school, and Ino found herself proven dead wrong.

"Hey, it's the hobo! How's it like sleeping in the streets?" A group of girls laughed while Ami crossed her arms, smirking.

Gritting her teeth, Ino stomped across the playground.

"Do you bathe in the sewers too?"

With a shove, Ino sent Ami careening backwards. "The only thing in the sewers will be your ugly face!"

At Ino's glare, Ami scowled and left. Not only was Ino rank one in class, she was a Yamanaka. You did _not_ mess with clan kids.

Turning around, Ino knelt down and gathered Sakura into her chest. "It's okay. Listen, we're going to get back at her. Tomorrow, we're getting ten cans of nattō and convincing that Naruto idiot to dump it all into Ami's pants. He'd be totally in on it."

Ino let out a breath of relief when Sakura broke into a smile. "Yeah."

The nattō plan never carried through. Sakura trembled before her vandalized locker, her jacket torn, her homework in pieces on the floor. While she dropped to her knees and combed through her belongings in panic, Ino cursed under her breath.

"No... no..." Sakura threw her papers across the floor in search of something.

Before Ino could say anything, there was a giggle. "Look everyone, she even grovels like a hobo!"

Sakura froze, her eyes on Ami.

Ino cracked her knuckles and stepped forward. "That's it-!"

"You."

Ino whipped back to see Sakura stand up.

"Give it back."

Ami tilted her head. "Give what back? I wasn't aware hobos could own anything."

"Give it back!" Sakura cried, eyes swelled with tears. "_Please_!"

Ami lowered her eyelids, before she made a noise of concession. "Fine, you can have it back," she said, bending into a nearby trash can.

"Here, have it back."

Before Ino could react, Ami threw the soda can. It made a frightening noise against Sakura's head, before the remaining contents spilled down her hair and shoulders. In shock, Sakura watched the homework on the floor stain with blotches of brown.

Ami laughed. "Hey, ninety-nine more and you can buy yourself some deo-"

The hallway echoed with a howl that made Ino's blood turn cold. All the girls ran away as Sakura tackled Ami into the ground, clawing with her nails without restraint. "GIVE IT BACK! GIVE IT BACK NOW!"

Ami's scream got higher with each strike. Blood dripped from under Sakura's nails.

Shaking, Ino took a step back, then looked down to see a strand of something glinting under her foot. Ino ran to show Sakura her necklace.

By the time the teachers pried the hysterical girl away, Ami was already blind.

.

After six months, the housing administration had returned with a contract of Sakura's new home. The apartment was not glorious. Ino cringed at the peeling walls and crooked windows. Overhead on the roof were loud, gonging pipes caked with mildew, and below was the distinct smell of a run-down laundromat.

However, the price was more than fair, if not suspiciously cheap. Sakura had her own bedroom, bathroom, and kitchen. Most welfare children bunked in rooms that were smaller than a closet.

Ino's family made several trips getting Sakura furniture. Ino ran to her family's shop and picked out plants to provide distraction from the hideous walls. However, as she pushed a pot of spathiphyllum across the room, she caught the sight of something unusual. Frowning, she pushed the pot until it pressed against the wall. She pretended to not hear the groan on the other side.

"Sakura," she whispered, beckoning her friend over.

Sakura peeked out from the bathroom, foam-lathered gloves in the air. "What is it?"

"You've got pervert neighbor!" Ino hissed, scandalized. She nodded toward the part of the wall covered by the plant. "There's a peep hole."

Sakura knelt down and tilted her head against the wall, examining Ino's concern.

Ino expected some sort of reaction, but Sakura only stood up. "I'll keep the plant there. Thanks for letting me know." Without another word, she reached for the steel wool and went back to scrubbing.

Ino dropped her shoulders.

"Your mother was like a sister to me. You are welcome to eat with us, live with us, anytime." Ino watched her mother place a hand on Sakura's shoulder, then gather her purse and leave. Ino followed but gave a hesitant glance back.

"Bye, Sakura."

There was no reply.

After the door closed, the apartment was filled with only the sound of running water and scritch-scratch against ceramic. When no further justice could be done about the sink scum, Sakura filled a bucket and started on the floors.

She worked until the noise of labor could not distract her ears anymore. She became haunted by the creaks of her own footsteps, the silence of a humming refrigerator.

Rag forgotten, Sakura curled inwards, head pressed against a leg of her bed. She remained there while the light outside shifted and shadows stretched longer against the floorboards.

Even when her body told her it was past dinnertime, she had no will to move. Her mind blanked, as she stared at a fly crawl up and down the ceiling.

It was near dusk when Sakura crawled to her backpack. There was school tomorrow, and her homework was nowhere near complete. She dug around for her notebook, only to be confronted by an old cover.

_Konoha, the History_.

Her fingers trailed up the spine of the book, well-kept and fairly new. It still smelled of its previous owner. She shut her eyes, clutching the book intimately close to her heart.

Decided, she stripped away her pillowcase and wrapped the book as carefully as she could. In the bathroom, she scrubbed her hands and splashed her face. From her closet she threw on the nicest clothes Ino had given her. Finally, she pulled out her necklace, letting it rest against the center of her chest, crystallized in time.

She ran, hoping reach her destination before she lost the last streams of sunlight.

There was no answer on the first two knocks, but she heard movement inside by the third try. She stepped back when the door opened.

Sasuke waited.

"I..."

Sakura clutched the book tighter.

"I..."

She snapped shut her eyes. "S-Sasuke-kun!"

Sasuke stared at the book in her trembling hands, then her. He closed the door.

"Go home, Sakura."

.

_**Two years later...**_

.

For ten minutes, the alarm blared in the same _beep beep beep_ until someone finally slammed the button.

With a kick of the foot, the mattress flipped onto the ground, sandwiching the person on it against the ground.

"Get up."

.

Hatake Kakashi stared at the folder in hand.

_Uzumaki Naruto, age twelve, arrested for graffiti and vandalism, assault and battery, stealing, indecent exposure, loitering, and public urination. Orphaned since birth. Jinchūriki. Special notes: requires repetition around theoretical concepts, prone to bursts of unpredictability, fond of inappropriate jutsu. Addicted to ramen._

_Uchiha Sasuke, age twelve, no criminal record. Orphaned at age eight. Lone survivor of his clan's massacre. Special notes: severe lack of cooperation, little respect for adult authority, resistance to communication. Most gifted student in all forms of ninjutsu, taijutsu, and genjutsu. Has notable admiration from his peers._

_Haruno Sakura, age twelve, arrested for assault and battery, placed in psychiatric therapy for eight months under guidance of Yamanaka Inoichi. Orphaned at age ten. Special notes: despite record, Sakura is a good, well-behaved student. Highly sensitive, so use kind words during criticism._

Kakashi looked up from Iruka's notes and wondered what the hell the Hokage had set him up with.

He hid the files when the first of his students came. It was the Uchiha, who wordlessly sat across from him on the rooftop. Within a minute, a rosy girl joined them, sitting politely next to Sasuke. Kakashi assumed she would be Sakura.

After a minute, Kakashi was ready to start, only to interrupted by one last set of footsteps making its ascent up to the roof.

The Uzumaki clutched his head as he trotted over, hunched. Before the seats, he hesitated, switching his gaze between the Uchiha and the girl. He settled for the ground in front of them.

Kakashi cleared his throat and began. "I assume everyone got the notification that we were supposed to have met _last_ week." He stared down his three pupils, gauging their reactions. He was surprised to find none. "Well, do you have an explanation for yourselves?"

The silence was broken by the girl, who shuffled her feet. "S-sorry sensei, we did show up, and waited a long time too. But you see, it started getting late, and I had to return to my work shift. Then there was dinner to cook, laundry to wash, floors to clean, and bills to go through..."

When her lips quivered and she buried into her palms, Kakashi felt a piece of his dead heart break off.

Sasuke refused to justify himself until the girl looked up from her tears and sent a sharp stab to his side. "It was my mother's birthday," he sighed. "I went to deweed her grave."

And now, whatever remnants of Kakashi's heart crumbled into a pile of ash.

Both Sasuke and Sakura turned to Naruto, awaiting his story.

Naruto kept his face hidden behind bangs. "Well, you see. A few days ago, something dramatic happened in my life. I couldn't graduate, so I was told about this scroll, and things happened, and I learned that I was a... I was something _awful_... _S_o I... I..." His voice went hoarse.

He lifted his head up. "So I forgot to water my plants, ahaha!"

Kakashi collapsed.

"Sorry!" With a grin, Naruto swung both arms back. "We all had shit to do, so when you didn't show, we thought that a great _jōnin _like yourself must have been caught up on some noble, life-threatening mission to protect the village."

Naruto passed the baton back to Sasuke.

"One that was so crucial that he had to neglect his teaching responsibilities." Sasuke passed the baton back a full circle to Sakura.

"Because it would be incomprehensible that a man as respectable as you would be so _insensitive_ and _cruel_ as to intentionally make us waste time waiting for you, especially one with prior knowledge of our circumstances." Sakura smiled.

After an awkward pause, Kakashi clapped once. "Okay, nevermind," he said. "Let's just jump to introductions, shall we?"

Naruto snorted. "Oi, we've been classmates for six years. Think we already know each other."

"Just do it," Kakashi deadpanned.

And thus, Naruto delivered an ode to ramen. Sasuke hated on everything. Sakura gushed about clothes and boys and some television show named Sailor Stars.

When she finished, Kakashi stood up from the railing and closed his eye. "Well, now I guess you're all curious as to who I am."

"Not really."

"We already know."

"Can we talk about our first mission?"

Kakashi held back a blink.

His expression changed. "If you're so eager to get started," he said, dropping all nonsense, "then let's see what you're made of. Bring all your shinobi tools tomorrow morning. Pass my test, and we talk missions. Fail, and return to the Academy."

The trio accepted their logistics packet.

"Do come prepared. I will warn you that it is a difficult test, with a sixty-six percent failure rate every year." Kakashi smiled inwardly when the children tensed up.

As a farewell, "Oh, and don't eat breakfast. You'll throw up."

.

"_Team Seven? Yeah, I remember them. I'm guessing they left the classroom after ten minutes_?"

"_They waited ten minutes._"

"_Well, maybe more like eight._"

.

Kakashi jumped through the trees unusually passionate that morning. Passionate for the homicide of three arrogant children.

Three arrogant, _assiduous _children, he realized upon reaching the clearing. Dawn had yet to break, yet there were already busy movements below. Cloaking his presence, Kakashi observed the Uchiha boy lie a variety of traps throughout the field. Meanwhile, the girl sat amongst a mountain of scrolls, with the Uzumaki unloading another satchel of them from his back.

"Got anything, Sakura-chan?" Naruto peered down her shoulder, toast in mouth.

"Not yet," Sakura growled, unraveling another meter of scroll. "But I'll find it. Kakashi-sensei mentioned failure statistics. No way a test that common and standardized would not be documented... Aha!"

Sasuke paused his metalwork, listening.

"The two-bell test is a form of examination used to evaluate the compatibility of the three-man cell of fresh Academy graduates. Developed by the Second Hokage, further promoted by the Third and Fourth..."

As Sakura read, Kakashi felt a drop of sweat down his back. He glanced down at the stolen scrolls. The security at the Teaching Academy was not necessarily tight, but the fact that they thought to go there and succeeded in extracting the correct information was impressive.

Kakashi fought back a smile. Well, wasn't this an interesting team.

"Wait, I don't get it. So according to this, there are only two bells, but three people." Naruto held up three fingers in one hand, two in the other, and confirmed that they indeed did not match in number. "How does that work?"

When the other two looked equally befuddled, Kakashi pinched his nose. A moronic team too.

"We can steal the bells beforehand," Sasuke spoke up, his eyes never leaving the rig wires at hand. "No bells, no test."

Sakura frowned. "Who's to say he won't substitute the bells with something else. Also, he'd be on to us."

"Then you suggest we feign ignorance and take the test."

"Yes. This will be tricky, but it's ultimately an application of game theory. It's Hatake Kakashi. If we all think about securing a bell for ourselves, we have a zero percent success rate. It's better to combine our efforts and focus on getting them first, then rock-paper-scissor for the bells. Sixty-six percent success rate." Finished, Sakura rolled up the scroll and looked to her teammates, awaiting their reply.

"Heh, wouldn't that suck, if you lost your future to rock-paper-scissors." Naruto switched his gaze from Sakura to Sasuke, who kept his gaze on his work. When Sasuke finished oiling the last trap, he stood up.

"I think," Sasuke began, "we can all understand..."

With a bitter grin, Sakura extended a hand. "The meaning of..."

Naruto added his fist to the circle. "_Tough luck_."

They broke and got to work.

Kakashi watched his students coordinate their plot. By late morning, they had exchanged their arsenal and mapped a tree of scenarios and strategic maneuvers. Kakashi decided there was no point stalling any longer and revealed himself, ready to follow their choreography.

Naruto was sent first for an assessment of Kakashi's speed and strength, then later as the distraction. Sasuke had the offensive skills to perform the cornering and boxing. From above, Sakura kept peripheral and controlled signaling.

Despite a rough start, their performance became increasingly smooth, resulting in a bombardment of kage bushin from above, a net of blazing fire from below, and a lone girl waiting at his last escape point.

When Sakura jingled the bells, Kakashi held up his hands in acknowledgment.

"We got it, dattebayo!" Naruto cheered, huffing heavily.

Smirking, Sasuke wiped the blood from his lips and straightened up.

Sakura kept her smile.

"Hurry! We've only got a few seconds left to play rock-" Naruto turned around, eyes wide. "Sakura-chan?"

Alarmed, Sasuke pulled out a kunai.

However, Sakura had already handed a baffled Kakashi one of the bells, just as the timer rang.

Naruto gaped. "What-! We were supposed to rock-paper-scissor for those!"

Twirling her bell, Sakura smirked. "I lied. Thanks for the bell, boys."


	2. The Great Kakashi Bridge

"_My name is Uzumaki Naruto! My greatest like is cup ramen, though Ichiraku is even better! My greatest dislike is the three minute wait for instant ramen to cook. My dream? To become the Ramen King, and make everyone acknowledge the beauty of ramen!"_

Kakashi blinked. Well, that was quite... original.

"_My name is Uchiha Sasuke. There are a ton of things I dislike, although the worst offenses are tardiness, incompetence, laziness, excuses, and perversion. I don't have a dream, but I do have an ambition to kill a certain man."_

Although Kakashi had an educated guess as to who that man was, and how he certainly was not that man, he still felt inclined to shove his Icha Icha novel deeper into his pocket.

"_My name is Haruno Sakura. I like a lot of things! There are cute clothes and accessories. There are cute little animals. Ooh, and cute boys! I hope to one day a handsome, dark-haired boy would marry me and give me a mansion with my own cool, one-eyed butler and rough, unrefined bodyguard, both of whom are handsome and in love with me too. As for my hobbies, I love watching a show named Sailor Stars every Saturday morning. It's about these girls who fight crime by starlight and win love by daylight, and..."_

And now, Kakashi was slightly disturbed, though judging by Sasuke's and Naruto's pale faces, he was not alone.

.

Madam Shijimi rubbed her cheek against her anguished feline. "Oh my cute Tora-chan. I was so worried!"

The Mission Assignment Office was crowded, filled with scroll work and accounting. Wealthy patrons lined by the desks for requests, their children in a giggle of hide and seek behind the pillars.

While Naruto made a commotion to the Hokage about missions more fulfilling than planting potatoes, Sakura counted every ryō of her payment. Redundant mission or not, the wife of the Feudal Lord was paying two hundred thousand a pop. Even at one percent, Sakura counted enough to cover groceries for the month.

"Okay."

Sakura perked up to see the Hokage remove his pipe. "I'll give you a C-rank."

On cue, the door slid open to reveal some drunk in old man pants, a towel around his neck. "These are the ninja? They're just a bunch of brats, especially the short one with the stupid-looking face."

With a grab of the collar, Sakura stopped Naruto from killing their client, then frowned upon hearing their mission. She had no time for a stroll to the Land of Waves, and for the time duration of the mission, the pay was outright lousy.

Unfortunately, she had no say in the matter. No other team was available, and her teammates were eager to accept anything that did not involve shoveling pig shit.

When the Konoha main gate swung open, Naruto ran ahead, bickering with the client, a bridge builder named Tazuna. Kakashi followed. Sasuke shifted his gaze towards Sakura, who had froze at the sight of the open road.

"You coming?"

Clenching her jaw, she stepped forward. "Yes."

As they walked, Sakura scanned her surroundings, a lazy afternoon within a shuffle of green foliage and blue skies. She paid particular attentions to the shadows in her periphery and made caution to be in the center of the crowd at all times.

The problem with the external is unpredictability, the random variables and factors uncovered by textbook. The problem with the external is that you never know when some random person will step into the picture and take a hammer to your cardboard world.

Her eyes snapped open at the burst of blood, her teacher diced, the cap of his skull flying off.

"One down."

Chains whipped in the air, as two rogue nin jumped away from Kakashi's dismembered body in favor of Naruto. In a blink, they were behind him, the chain looping around his neck.

With a shuriken and intersecting kunai, Sasuke pinned their chain to the nearest tree, locking them in place before kicking their faces. This gave Sakura enough time to withdraw her own kunai and push their client back.

One of the two enemies unlocked his chain first and flashed toward them. Her eyes narrowed. She made herself overlook the metal of his claw, the menace of his eye, all the machinery and armor and gear, deconstructing him until there stood a man as fragile as herself. With every vulnerability as herself, the vulnerabilities she was all too aware of as she cradled her neck at nights, wrapped under a cocoon of covers.

A clang of metal. Sakura dug her feet into the ground, twisting the handle of her kunai to keep the claw from inching closer to her eye. The enemy shifted weight, ready to punch with his other hand when Sasuke materialized, delivering a kick from below.

A perfectly intact Kakashi then held the enemy in a choke hold, the accomplice already succumbed under his other arm.

It was over.

Sakura collapsed to her knees in relief. However, her pulse quickened again after learning their client had conned them. This was no peaceful escort. A cornered Tazuna confessed he was actually targeted by a billionaire drug lord who had more than enough disposable income to dispose of _them_.

Immediately, Sakura voiced her objection. She prioritized the mission as A level, hardly appropriate for genin. Kakashi might be able to protect them rogue chūnin, but if a shipping magnate like Gatō wanted Tazuna dead, he could hire a team of _jōnin. _To continue would be a violation of Konoha codes. Not to mention, the shit-ass pay.

Unfortunately, the rest of her team ignored her logistics, out of either dedication or ego, but mostly ego. To reinforce continuing the mission, Naruto, who sustained a poison injury during the outbreak, went on a masochistic streak and slit his own hand. Then there was Sasuke, whose unnecessary derision had fueled Naruto's idiocy in the first place.

By the time Kakashi declared they would move forward, Sakura concluded she hated them all.

.

For the sake of protection, their journey was winded with detours. Part of the trip was a languid boat ride through a swamp of vegetation, the air heavy of compost and gas. The fog was so dense, Sakura breathed in moisture, her hand vanishing from sight when extended too far.

After the boat docked, they traveled on foot. The landscape was crowded with native trees, twisted and bent, roots tenting out from the mossy soil. With every step, Sakura felt her sandals sink into sponges of mud, although the humidity did well to cover their tracks.

Unfortunately, no amount of humidity could cover Naruto.

"There!" Without warning, he threw a shuriken at the bushes.

Startled, Sakura whipped around, kunai ready to fend off... a rabbit? Her eye twitched.

Naruto laughed nervously, scooping up the traumatized rabbit in a hug. "Sorry, bunny!"

Sakura scowled, ready to put herself a few meters ahead of Naruto's recklessness when something hit her. She did a double-take.

"Sakura-chan?"

Squinting, Sakura pulled the rabbit up by its ears. Wasn't this a species of snow rabbits? From her textbooks, their pigment darkened from white to brown under increased exposure to sunlight. The ability was an evolutionary advantage that allowed them to camouflage in both winter and summer landscapes.

It was already late spring, yet this one was pure white. So either she had a genetic mutant in her hands or-!

A shout. "Duck!"

Without thinking, she threw herself against Naruto, just as a butcher sword spun through the air and sliced into a tree. On top appeared a figure of muscular built, his gaze alone more dangerous than any tooth-edged chains. That her teacher recognized the person, a rogue Kiri nin by the name of Zabuza, and vice versa, did not help the situation.

Kakashi lifted his shinobi headband.

Zabuza crackled. "Ah, so I get to see the famous Sharingan already."

Both Sasuke and Sakura froze.

"_Can you tell me what you know about the Uchiha clan?"_

Ino had lowered the spoon from her lips, staring back in confusion. _"The Uchiha clan," _she repeated.

"_There's no archive on the Uchiha in any of the research facilities. There's little documentation on clans in general, but the Uchiha is practically invisible in history."_

"_Well, I would assume everything would be kept in their own library. They weren't exactly the gossipy kind." _Ino scoffed, digging her spoon back into the matcha ice cream.

With a grin, she leaned forward. Luckily for Sakura, Ino _was_ the gossipy kind. _"Did you know they had their own religion?" _she whispered. _"Yeah, went to a temple every week for some arcane sun and moon, dark and light ritual type of thing."_

Sakura raised an eyebrow. _"They were a cult?"_

"_Oh yeah, it's supposed to enhance their 'ultimate jutsu'."_

"_The katon," _Sakura clarified.

Ino grinned wider. _"You don't really think that, do you?"_

"_I know that's what their clan insignia signifies, even if many clans share the ability of the katon, and no simple fire mastery is enough to resort to inbreeding nor oust the power of the Hyūga."_

At Sakura's look, Ino burst out into a laugh. _"Clever girl. Yes, the kekkei genkai you're wondering about is known as the Sharingan. The evil eye, as some would call it. It appeared in the select elite of the clan."_

"_What does this doujutsu do?"_

"_The better question is, what doesn't it do. They were freaky powerful, Sakura. Their lamest could defeat the best of other clans. Too bad for us, they were also rather possessive of their things, knowledge included, and really did keep to themselves. All we know is, once that eye turns red, you better run."_

As Kakashi's eye spun, Sakura faced more questions than answers. Of all the things from her last background check on this man, an Uchiha exclusive kekkei genkai was not one of them. But maybe that was a good thing, because this Sharingan may be the key to guaranteeing their quick victory and safe ret-

Sakura blinked. Did he just- Okay, that water prison was looking pretty effective there.

Nevermind, the Sharingan was lousy, her teacher was lousier, and they were screwed. Great.

A water clone morphed from the ground beside Naruto, sending him flying meters away. Shaking, Naruto crawled up and charged back at the clone.

"You idiot-!"

Zabuza kicked Naruto back in place. Sakura swallowed, her lips curling upwards. Good, Naruto, good.

"Sorry to keep you guys waiting." Naruto chuckled, strapping on his retrieved headband.

He turned to Sasuke, who looked to Sakura, who nodded back at Naruto. Without a word, they exchanged equipment, a mutual grin settling on their faces.

"Time to get wild, boys."

In amusement, Zabuza watched the girl strap on metal arm guards. It was rare to see Konoha nin show backbone. Still, they did display the village's stupidity when she charged forward as recklessly as the dumb-looking brat.

He waited for her to come into range, then sliced her torso away from her lower body. Two halves of the snow rabbit plopped in the ground, while the girl spun an one-eighty, couched beside him in balance.

On his second cut, she transformed into the dumb-looking brat from before, tongue out, index and pinky out. A scarf of tags burned around his severed neck. "Sayonara, sucker!"

Zabuza watched the explosion of his clone, more intrigued by their use of kage bunshin than impressed. He cannot imagine why they would layer a clone with a henge, except to conceal the girl's true whereabouts. Perhaps to give her a chance to flee unnoticed from battle, given Konoha's accredited "chivalrous" ways.

"Sorry, wrong deduction."

How-! Zabuza blocked her attack with a swing his sword. Sakura crossed her arms to take the brunt of his attack. She winced, before smirking and transforming into a burst of flames. Just as Zabuza pulled up a defensive wall of water around himself, a hidden fūma shuriken burst through the steam. _Two _fūma shuriken, one in the shadow of the other.

Forced to break his prison grip on Kakashi, Zabuza seized the upper windmill and dodged the lower, but had no time to foresee any further. The dodged shuriken threw a kunai from below, the dark-haired boy threw a kunai from above, and the girl threw a kunai from behind, simultaneously puncturing his lung, heart, and neck.

Dripping, an escaped Kakashi watched Zabuza collapse to his knees.

"You've got a good team," Zabuza laughed, eyes wild with bloodlust.

"It's over," Kakashi said. "You're already dead."

Zabuza's body rolled on the ground.

Kakashi eyed the dirt tunnel beside the body. Incredible. Never would he have thought that an S-rank criminal like Zabuza would be made a fool by a simple application of kawarimi.

With his Sharingan, Kakashi caught the whole performance, starting with the kage bunshin planted by the foot of Zabuza's water clone. While the kage bunshin dug underground, Sakura advanced to the water clone, using a kawarimi with the snow rabbit to get inside the range of Zabuza's sword. The second kawarimi, Sakura and Naruto's kage bunshin substituted with each other, so Sakura could land in proximity to the real Zabuza and the kage bunshin could blow up the water clone. With the water clone gone, Naruto and Sasuke were free to mobilize under the cover of the debris, so that by the third and final kawarimi, Sakura and Sasuke could substitute, allowing Sasuke to deliver a close-range katon and Sakura to throw Naruto as a shadow shuriken.

Individually, Naruto's kage bunshin was a flexible, disposable tool, but lacked subtlety. Sasuke's katon, as devastating as it was, proved easily countered at a distance. But with a third member on the team, they were not only able to position themselves in the right places at the right time, but also create enough layers of confusion to delay Zabuza's reaction, if only by a second.

You only need one second to kill a man.

Zabuza made a grave mistake of toying with this team, and he paid with his life.

Just as Kakashi thought he could relax, he detected a second presence from the woods. A masked child in the traditional garbs of the Kiri descended before Zabuza's body.

Sasuke appeared before Tazuna in protection. Naruto growled, ready to attack when Kakashi pulled him back.

"This one isn't an enemy," he said, eying the hunter-nin mask.

"I hail from Kirigakure," the child said softly. "I commend you for defeating a wanted rogue nin. It is my duty to now dispose of this body."

Naruto unwound when the child lifted the body and vanished. Kakashi pulled down his headband, satisfied by how the situation resolved itself.

"Well, now that's over, we should get Tazuna-san back home."

Tazuna tilted his hat and laughed merrily. "Super thanks for not letting me die, kids! Come over to my house for refreshments!"

"Whoo!" Naruto cheered at the mention of food.

They were ready to set off, until Sasuke peered down at the puddle of blood by one unconscious kunoichi. "... Guys."

Naruto's grin froze on his face, before slowly sinking down into an open jaw. His face turned white.

"HOLY SHIT, SAKURA-CHAN!"

.

A kunai peeked out from the grass.

Haku placed a hand against Zabuza's neck, ignoring the blood slipping through the cracks of his fingers. Ice began to crystallize and seal the wound.

"Please let me stay by your side."

A tear slipped down his cheek.

"Please."

.

Sakura woke up to an unfamiliar ceiling, cinder block casts around her arms. Doesn't this hurt like a bitch.

"I admit the strategy was fine," Kakashi said. "But in terms of body collateral, the role should have gone to Naruto."

Naruto jumped on her futon. "Yeah, Sakura-chan! You nearly lost both your arms!"

Sakura pondered this. Konoha's compensation for bodily damage on missions was substantial, and two arms chopped off meant at least five years of welfare money.

But no. Zabuza was already handicapped to one hand, and she had specifically picked a position with a difficult angle for him to even reach, let alone strike powerfully. Added with the inertia of his sword and its aerodynamics, there simply was not enough momentum for a fatal blow.

Not that she would bother explaining centripetal force to Naruto.

"Trust me," she said impatiently. "I'd lose your arms over mine any day." But it was not like she could not henge anywhere as convincingly as Naruto, nor blow out a katon like Sasuke, so distraction dummy it was.

She dropped the topic. "Anyway, what is this hunter-nin everyone is mumbling about?"

"Oh, some weird kid in a mask just came in and took the body away. Apparently to burn it or something."

Sakura furrowed her brows. "That's conveniently timed," she said. "And during our fight, he made no effort to help us?"

"I know, what a douchebag!"

Sakura kept her skepticism.

Kakashi shifted. "I've been thinking the same thing too, Sakura."

"Whaa-?"

Unable to constrain her temper, she dealt a headbutt to Naruto's skull. "You moron! You just let Zabuza's ally walk away!" Groaning, she buried her head into the futon. "I _knew _it. I knew there was someone else."

"How-"

"The bunny!" she growled. "It was a pet, and Zabuza didn't strike me as the bunny type. They were a pair, he and the kid."

"So-?"

"_So_ there's someone still after Tazuna-san! And let's pray their relationship wasn't close, or else we're targets of revenge!"

Huffing, Sakura turned to Kakashi, who sat weighing the turn of events. If he had any sense of responsibility, he would take them back to Konoha right now. It had been a miracle they managed to kill Zabuza, and she was not pushing her luck, especially now that the enemy knew better than to underestimate them as bumbling kids.

But of course, nope, there was that exemplary display of dedication again. And ego. Still mostly ego.

"We're going to prepare for the worst case scenario and begin training," Kakashi decided. "Sasuke, Naruto, you come with me. Sakura..." He looked down at her casts. "Why don't you take it easy."

A small, dead voice caught everyone's attention. "What's the point. You're all just going to die anyway."

"Inari!"

Deadpanned, Sakura waited for everyone to quiet. An angered Naruto chased after the client's grandson, with an apologetic Tazuna following. Kakashi's idle, one-sided conversation with Sasuke did little to mend the awkwardness in the room, resulting in both opting to silently leave for the fields.

When the room emptied, the mother of the family, Tsunami, came to Sakura's side. "I am terribly sorry about my son," she grumbled. "If there's anything I can do to make you more comfortable..."

Sakura kicked the comforter off. "Yeah, help me up." She hissed. "Kakashi-sensei did not receive an exorbitant portion of my mission fee to train my _teammates_."

With that, Sakura straightened up and stalked out, one limb at a time. When she burst out the door, she nearly fell into the water. The entire architecture of the house was suspended above a river, a dragonfly buzzing past her nose.

"Oh wow," she mumbled, eying the pier.

In the fields, Sasuke and Naruto were vertically running up trees. Sakura craned her neck. "So cool, teaching us three dimensional maneuverability, sensei?"

Kakashi frowned. "Sakura, what are you doing here. I told you to stay at the house."

"But-"

"This isn't a joking matter. Zabuza's sword pierced through your arm guards, severed several tissues and nerves, and fractured your bone. I may have stitched you up, but you're in no condition to be training. If you fall from that height..."

Her eyes narrowed. Teach _properly_, and she won't fall.

"Sorry, I did not mean to be rebellious or ungrateful," she said, shuffling her feet. "I just felt a bit left out. You know, irrelevant."

Kakashi softened his expression, before patting her head. "Listen," he said, his eye wrinkled in a smile. "What you did against Zabuza has already exceeded all my expectations." Those must had been some pretty low expectations. "Let your arms recover." Her arms were perfectly capable of recovering _while she trained_. "It's okay if you don't push yourself further for tonight." Actually, no, pushing hard and fast seemed necessary given, you know, the drug lord sending all those rogue shinobi after them. "After all, I believe you have already outperformed both the boys."

Sakura blinked at her teacher's sincerity.

And then, she laughed. And laughed. And _laughed_.

Did he just seriously just say that. Did he seriously miss the underground tunnel dug under the span of fifteen seconds. With _fingernails_.

Or the breath of fire hot enough to incinerate all carbon matter within a three meter radius.

Or the _kage bunshin_ that most shinobi cannot accomplish given in a _lifetime_. How about a _hundred_. With a shortcut hand seal Naruto _invented in the middle of combat_.

Or the inhuman reaction speeds and complementary flash-step. That by the time that light had hit her pupil and her receptors had sent a picture for her brain to process, Sasuke had already traveled five meters in the air, pulled out a set of weapons, and locked onto his target with laser precision.

Or the henge that could mimic the mass, volume, weight, density of any object, perfect down to its thermal, kinetic, and optical properties.

Guess raw physical and mental stamina was not worth much nowadays.

Nor regenerative powers that made one oblivious to damage.

Cradling her stomach, Sakura found her breath and wiped a tear from her eye. "Thank you, sensei. That's the first time someone ever complimented me like that. You are so kind." He was so full of bullshit.

Sasuke had made his twentieth strike when he turned around. Naruto was still flopping like a fish on the ground, and Kakashi was further behind, reading a book. But he swore he heard Sakura a moment ago.

"What are you doing here?" Tazuna asked, watching Sakura join the construction workers on the bridge. Her scowl reconfigured into a smile.

"Kakashi-sensei sent me to act as your bodyguard!" she chirped. "Anything I can do to help?"

While Sasuke and Naruto trained in the woods, Sakura played hopscotch on the bridge, lost in mental ramblings. Tazuna did not think there was much Sakura could do without arms, so he left her alone to her quirky behavior. The construction required full attention.

It was not until late noon that Tazuna noticed that Sakura had escalated her game of hopscotch to the bridge railings. Eyes closed, Sakura realigned her torso, controlling the shaking of her leg.

"Fifty seven, point one... point two..." In the darkness of her mind, the diagram shifted once more, a web of lines stretching in parallel before curving at the base of her foot. Angle thirty eight, lower shoulder, cosine square root N over k, keep perpendicular the arm and-

"Hey, careful there! The railings get slippery!"

Her eyes snapped open. With a yelp, Sakura toppled over. Luckily, she fell onto the deck instead of the crashing waters below. Unluckily, she did not escape unscathed, as fresh blood seeped out from her elbows and knees, from where she scraped against the cement. Tazuna shook his head while Sakura laughed nervously.

"Sorry, I'll just go back over there," she said mildly, taking her hopscotch chalk.

Once she turned around, she dropped her smile. On the floor, she marked an arrow. From the start, the repulsion force of chakra on matter...

The following day, Tazuna was on his lunch break when he accidentally knocked over his water bottle. Seeing the bottle bob in the waters below, Tazuna shrugged it off as a lost cause.

However, Sakura set down her bento and volunteered to retrieve it.

"Can you swim?" Tazuna joked.

"I don't need to."

With that, she walked off the bridge. Jaw open, Tazuna called to his men for a rope. However, as they lowered him down, there was no drowning girl. Like a water spider, she walked across the water, then back up the towers, then under the deck, and finally back upright.

"Here you go!" She presented the water bottle to him.

"How in the world...?"

"Dynamic equilibrium," she said simply. "I found it."

After a day of calculations, Sakura had reached a recipe of 73.2 percent muscle, 24.6 percent stamina, and 2.2 percent chakra focus that allowed three dimensional maneuverability, let it be a leap off the ground, or a slide across the water. For horizontal positions, strengthen core and spine to adjust for torque. For aerial combat, tunnel chakra for propulsion. For climbs, disperse and contract for adhesion. Purely formulaic, and after three thousand runs of trial and error, Naruto and Sasuke made the same discovery.

Tazuna removed his hard hat. "I see," he said, solemnly. He plopped the hat on her head and shouted to his crew. "Oi, ready the chains! We've got ourselves a new worker!"

Her new skill proved useful in connecting cables, fixing underbeams, and acting as a general mediator between the two uncompleted sides.

"What a day! At this rate, we'll finish way ahead of schedule!" Tazuna exclaimed, sauntering into town in merry steps. "You're a piece of work, you know that? Parents must be proud."

Sakura gave a dry smile.

The marketplace was a collection of rundown shacks. Half the shops sold onions by individual stalks, and malnutritioned children huddled in the streets. Originally, Sakura had hoped to use this grocery trip to stock up on medicine and weaponry, but now she would be lucky to find rice.

"It wasn't always like this," Tazuna mumbled. "The town was fine until Gatō robbed it of its wealth."

Sakura said nothing. Then, "Where does this Gatō person live again?"

Back at the house, when Naruto and Sasuke were not busy bromantically latching onto each other in heaps of sweat, they were glaring over the dinner table, stuffing food into their mouths. They extended their empty bowls for more, before hurling.

Eye twitching, Sakura set down her chopsticks. "You boys have some nerve," she said, cracking her knuckles, "_wasting food_!"

When she slammed their heads into their respective bowls, Kakashi concluded that her arms may have sufficiently healed for combat.

.

Nights in the Land of Waves were different from those back home. The fog would become heavy to the point of unbreathable. It would also blanket all moonlight, so that the entire outside was blind to even the shinobi. Your world became an island, limited to the space of your hut and whatever artificial means you had to light your way.

Sakura listened to the creaks and croaks, the chirping a pitch lower than the ones of Konoha. The night also amplified the groans of the house itself, old planks of wood straining against the sways of the water. If she sat still enough, she could feel the house sway too.

She cannot say whether she preferred this type of living or not, only that the nights felt strange without the buzz of electrical equipment, barks of the neighborhood dog, and occasional crash of a tipped garbage can. In the futon next to her, Naruto snored. There was the silhouette that marked Sasuke in the far corner. Upstairs were the client and his family, who had turned in after the last dishes were set on the rack, the last toothbrush returned to its cup, the last words and laughs exchanged in the hall.

It was strange indeed.

"Is something bothering you, Sakura?"

She turned her attention to the scar down the face of her teacher. Kakashi did not look up from his jutsu.

"Nothing in particular," she said. She tilted her head for close scrutiny of his eye. "But your eye, it's so cool, sensei!"

His eyes curled into a smile. "And useful." Done, he released her arm. She rolled her wrist and tested her muscles. It was the seventh night of healing, and while some phantom pain lingered, she was more or less recovered.

She noticed the drain on her teacher, though, as he shielded his Sharingan.

"Do you mind me asking how you got it?"

"Aren't you a curious one."

At Kakashi's avoidance, Sakura lowered her head in concession. The matter was obviously private, and if anyone were to deserve an explanation, Sasuke would be far ahead in line. Still, it did not hurt to ask.

"I just like knowing things, Kakashi-sensei."

Her smile was the sweet kind, contrasted to Naruto's silly one, but both were fake. Her tone was fake. Her politeness was fake.

Besides strong academic grades, the only thing Kakashi knew about Sakura was her love for some series called Sailor Stars. She would gush about the show on every mission, squealing over the latest so-and-so cute character, much to the dismay of her teammates.

Girls would be girls, though, and Kakashi did not think too deeply into the quirk at first. After all, the show was popular among girls, and from what Kurenai told him, had positive lessons about friendship, tolerance, and respect.

It had also been canceled a good year ago, and none of the characters Sakura giggled about ever existed.

"Sakura," Kakashi began.

She met his gaze. "Yes, sensei?"

The uneven lighting had darkened her pupils to jade, her skin dyed a grey. On her face was the innocent smile of a girl, a girl who had not killed a man just the week prior.

"Why did you give me a bell that day," he decided to ask.

She sent him a strange look. "Well, sensei, I would assume the same reason why my teammates are still here."

Her features became chiseled by chiaroscuro. "Were you really going to deny the nine-tailed jinchūriki and the last Uchiha tutelage for a nobody like me?" She chuckled darkly. "I wanted to call your bluff."

Kakashi stiffened. "About Naruto, you know."

She flashed him another sweet smile. "I told you, I like knowing things."

Because it was the things that you did not know that would come to kill you.

.

For a week, the days had been idyllic. Then, on the eighth morning, half the bridge crew lied slaughtered, every body punctured by senbon. Before them stood the masked child.

"Zabuza-san." There was ice in his voice. "I will fulfill your last wish and execute this man."

Kakashi deflected the senbon before it could pierce Tazuna in the throat. To Sasuke, he smiled. "You mind protecting Tazuna-san?"

Back at the house...

"Oh shit! We're late!" Naruto exclaimed, jumping into his pants.

From her futon, Sakura eyed him through layers of eye bags. She yawned. "What's the hurry. It's not like the bridge is going to up and move."

"No, but like hell I'm going to let Sasuke get a private training session with Kakashi-sensei."

"Fair enough, help me up."

Sakura grabbed her backpack, before her eye caught a roll of wire.

"Sakura-chan?"

Sakura strapped the coil to her back, before flipping out the window. Her feet stopped at the surface of the river. "Tazuna-san mentioned some construction tools for the bridge yesterday. I don't want to make a second trip back for them."

"Oh, let me help!" Naruto beamed, hopping over the windowsill after her.

Sakura facepalmed at the splash that ensued.

"Why did you do that!"

"Because you did!"

She violently shook his soaked body. "You idiot! Don't mimic skills you don't yet have and expect things to magically work out!"

"Ahaha, but you'll teach me, right, Sakura-chan, _right_?"

"BAH!"

At the warehouse, Sakura handed Naruto the handle of a sledgehammer before running to gather more equipment. Once done, they dashed back to the house a final time to sign off Tsunami and Inari.

On their leap across the trees, Sakura glanced down to Naruto's footwork. He grinned at hers. In unison, they somersaulted, before straightening from their crouch. Looked like the old days of walking were over.

"Good luck!" Tsunami said, drying a dish.

Sakura adjusted the strap of her backpack. "Yeah, see you-"

The wall smashed open.

"-later."

Sakura blinked at the goon in mime makeup and beanie, then at the shirtless wannabe pirate with tattoos. Her gaze fell to the broken table, split down the middle, and the plates smashed on the floor. Tsunami cowered against the sink while Inari stood frozen by the kitchen doorway.

The goon lifted his sword at Tsunami. "Tazuna's daughter, you're coming with us!"

Sakura blinked once more. Then, she smiled. "Naruto?"

"Yeah?"

"You mind taking Tsunami and the kid to the other room?" Slowly, Sakura set down her backpack and relieved Naruto of the sledgehammer. Her smile darkened to a sneer. "I don't want them to see this."

Naruto seized Inari and ushered a bewildered Tsunami upstairs. "Hey, no worries, it's going to be alright," he said.

Inari peeked up from his hat. "How do you know?"

After a glance across the room, Naruto crouched down and whispered, "You know that girl down there? I grew up with her, and if there's anything I know, it's that she's..."

"She's what?"

"Well, she's fucking crazy."

Downstairs in the kitchen, Sakura stared impassively at Gatō's new recruits.

"You got yourself into a bad mess, girly," the pirate laughed. "I've just been wanting to cut-"

Five bashes later, Sakura dropped the sledgehammer and peeled skull bits off the cabinet drawers. Grabbing a leg, she gathered the bodies into industrial garbage bags. She scowled at the streaking trails of red, but kept dragging the bags until they were a safe distance from the house. Sasuke could take care of the bodies with a katon when he got back.

It was indeed a mess. She rinsed her hands and shouted to Naruto for help on the clean up. His kage bunshin began to mop the floor when one caught sight of a set of swords lying on the floor.

"They're fancy enough to fetch good money," Sakura said.

By the time the real Naruto brought Inari and his mother downstairs, the kitchen had been sterilized. As for the broken wall and furniture, Sakura tossed the swords to Naruto and promised to return with enough cash for the damages.

"Gatō's already started making his move. There will be more people after you," Sakura said. "Naruto, think you're proficient enough with the kage bunshin to have a clone keep an eye on them?"

"I am now." To Inari, Naruto grinned. "Keep strong, you hear?"

They set off.

Upon arrival at the bridge, their eyes widened. Five men of the construction crew lied sprawled across the bridge. Sasuke lied prone on the ground in front of Tazuna, a coat of senbon punctured through him.

Deep in the fog, a child in a chipped masked shoved Kakashi's limp body aside. He stumbled forward, a trail of blood down the fabric of his haori. With dead eyes, he withdrew his last three senbon. "For Zabuza-san," he whispered.

Naruto balled forward, shielding Tazuna from one last desperate attack before the child collapsed.

Then, all fell to silence.

Naruto knelt beside Tazuna. "Oi, you're okay, right?"

Tazuna lowered his gaze in shame. "Yeah," he said. "That boy protected me with his life."

Naruto stared speechlessly at Sasuke. "No... Nonono!" He lifted his body. It was cold. "No, no, don't be dead on me, you bastard. I haven't beaten you yet. I haven't- I- Who gave you permission to play hero without me!" He screamed and shook him harder.

Sakura swallowed deeply at her teacher's body. By some devastating force, his own hand was buried in his ribcage, too frighteningly deep, so deep it looked like he had burst from the inside out. Standing up, she closed her hand and forced herself to break away. She checked the others, but the crew was dead too.

"Please tell me Sasuke-kun is..." She stopped at Naruto's hunched-over form, the tears rolling down his chin. They did not stop, dripping onto Sasuke's forehead and cheek.

The tap of a cane. "What a touching scene."

They whipped around to see a mob at the end of the bridge, led by a suited man. "I must say this went perfectly, two down on both sides." The man looked up from his round shades. "Little girl and boy, I'm feeling generous today. You have one chance to run."

Naruto controlled his shaking and stood up. Sakura stared expressionlessly.

"I'm guessing the mouse-looking thing is Gatō," she stated in monotone.

"Yeah, I bet he is," Naruto deadpanned.

"Flip a coin?"

"Let's share."

"Fine by me."

Naruto withdrew both blades, while Sakura slung the sledgehammer over her shoulder.

"You kids seriously think you can take on _me_?" Gatō laughed, but stepped back when the two children were unfazed except for a spike in chakra from one and a drop in temperature from the other. "Kill them!" he ordered.

Naruto took left while Sakura ran along the right railing, a line of wire strung between them that with a pull and yank, sawed off the heads of the first line of offense. Naruto jumped into the crowd, spinning a hurricane of red. Sakura bashed her sledgehammer into the face of one man, before evading a spear with a fall off the bridge. "Eep!"

Just as the men peered over the railing, awaiting the sound of crashing water, she flipped back upright, hammering their heads into one. "Just kidding."

Gatō watched in horror as his crew was chopped and minced like meat. A demon approached him in even steps, burning hot enough for steam to evaporate from his skin. His pupils had thinned into the slits of a monster, mouth baring a row of sharp, interlocked teeth.

Naruto rolled his neck. "To let you in on a secret, I was starting to like him." He lifted his swords. "A lot."

Gatō whipped around, only to find a smiling girl. "You killed my future husband and butler." She raised her sledgehammer. "They were so handsome."

The scream was long. Nauseated, Tazuna averted away from the slaughterhouse. His eyes landed on the befallen boy, then widened at the sight of a rising breath.

Hazily, Sasuke opened his eyes. He stared at his teammates, who stared back, chakra dispersed, weapons falling anticlimactically out of their grip.

"Oh look," Sakura said. "He's alive."

Naruto stiffened and buried his face into his palm. "Don't get your hopes up, Sakura-chan. He could still die."

"No fool, I'm alive-"

Flushing, Naruto stomped Sasuke's head back down. "Nope, after that, you're _dead_."

.

"The Great Kakashi Bridge, huh."

Anko slung back into the couch. Fate certainly had a twisted sense of irony. Hatake Kakashi. The man to survive a decade of assassination work, wandering for ages in the dark, before finally pulled to the light, to a future and recovery, only to die on a C-rank mission protecting a drunk and some bumbling kids.

"Wow, what a blow."

Hiruzen understood the loss all too well. Kakashi had been one of their best black ops, as well as the village's only Sharingan wielder for a good four years. Not only that, he had been the perfect mentor candidate to Naruto and Sasuke.

"At least I finally found a new sensei for Team 7," the Hokage sighed, setting down the scroll.

"Ha, nice. Who's the sucker?" Anko asked, toying with a dagger.

"You."

The dagger fell.

"WHAT!"

.

Danzō descended down the dungeon steps, two masked shinobi in his shadow.

The closer to the cell, the colder the air became, until the floor became frosted white, as did the walls and bars. With a nod of his head, the guards parted for his entrance.

Strapped by chains, the prisoner watched him withdraw something from his sleeve. It turned to be not a sword, but a bowl.

With wrinkled hands, Danzō laid the hot chazuke before him as offering, as well as a pair of chopsticks.

"Child of Snow, we welcome you to the Land of Fire."


	3. The Tenth Question

Unwashed bowls stacked up. Adjacent to the wall of swimsuit models was a promotional poster of the Nobi Noodle company. Scattered across the floor were training weights and a weave of scrolls stopped short of the plant collection in the corner.

The kitchen revealed more species of hosta and a thriving pot of spathiphyllum. Empty cabinet. Empty cabinet. Anko blinked at the crate of cup ramen in the last cabinet, before deciding to scavenge the fridge instead. One carton of milk. Expired.

Connecting the Uzumaki residence to the Haruno residence was a convenient hole in the middle of their kitchen wall. Anko ducked through to find the blueprints for both kitchens as mirror copies of one another, although the second room had arguably less plant, less factory-processed miso, and less bikini bombshells.

From the window blew a breeze that fluttered the paperwork, straining to free from a half-filled mug. The office atmosphere continued, with a box of tea packets seated next to the kettle, and the cabinets bare of anything except vitamin bottles. Anko tried the fridge. One can of anmitsu. Expired.

Skipping a trip wire, she peeked into the bedroom. It was not any cleaner than the previous bedroom, an explosion of books and underwear all around. The room was also more claustrophobic, with three of the four walls converted to bookshelves, walls of stitch bindings that insulated the space from floor to ceiling. The air stood still, strong of ink and cellulose decay.

Done, Anko exited the apartment complex in favor of uptown.

"Aw yeah, now this is what I'm talking about!" Anko stretched in the king sized bed, before hopping off to explore what the wealth of the Uchiha had to offer.

Unfortunately, the Uchiha proved to be as austere as they were wealthy. Aesthetics were minimalistic and same went for utility, the kitchen empty of even a pot or pan. All shades were down, windows shut, creating a cold atmosphere.

While the space was comfortable, the sparse furniture added to the lonely feel. The emptiness did not translate into cleanliness either, as her fingers picked up a trail of dust off the table, so thick that one had to wonder if anyone lived here.

Anko was not surprised when the fridge had nothing past one store package of onigiri. And of course, _expired_.

.

The alarm blared in _beep beep beep_, until finally stopped by a slam of the button.

"Get up."

"Five more minutes, okaa-chan," Naruto mumbled, rubbing his cheek against a pillow. Despite her poking, he buried deeper into the covers and wiggled away.

Eye twitching, Sakura pressed her foot against his cheek. "_Up._ We're meeting our new sensei today."

"EH?" Naruto bolted upright, his face slamming into the notice in her hands. "Mitarashi?" he read.

After snatching their supplies, the duo ran to their meeting spot, a field on the outskirts of the village. Sasuke was already at the post but made no effort to acknowledge their presence. Naruto, who usually mouthed off whenever they came in contact, also refused to make eye contact.

After rolling through scrolls for a silent ten minutes, Sakura became fed up with their awkwardness. They had been weird ever since Land of Waves, like they had confessed love or something and now can't live up to the consequences.

"So, guess what, boys!" she exclaimed. "I _just_ caught up on a season marathon of Sailor Stars this past weekend, and _oh mai gosh_, I can't believe I never realized how incredibly _hot_ the old villains were! One of them got this, like, beautiful, white hair that just _shines_ in the moonlight, and his _chest_, hm, it's just so-"

Sasuke coughed. Naruto jumped at the opportunity. "Oh, what's that Sasuke, you want to spar? Over there? Yeah sure, I'd be glad to kick your ass, ahaha!"

When they left, Sakura dropped her act and returned to the profile of Mitarashi Anko. She frowned when no such name showed up in any of the teaching records. That was impossible. The Hokage could not have set them up with a non-certified teacher... could he?

Her thought was broken by a distant explosion. While she hid the stolen scrolls, her teammates stopped in time to see a figure strut out of the smoke, overcoat fluttering behind.

The woman licked her lips. "Hello, kittens."

Sakura had met this Mitarashi person for a total of five seconds before deciding that she really did not like her. While their former teacher had a tendency to be late, their new teacher seemed to be unpredictably early. She also appeared to like flashiness as opposed to Kakashi's sneakiness, given the amount of unnecessary land damage her entrance created.

Nonetheless, Sakura planted on her brightest smile. "Good morning! Are you our-"

Anko cut into her introduction. "Let's make this quick. Who's the loser jinchūriki and who's the loner Uchiha."

Instead of an answer, Anko got a charge in her direction, alongside a "Who you calling a loser!" She did not bat an eyelash.

A monster anaconda lowered Naruto to eye level. "Guess this feisty one is the foxie." She smiled, watching him struggle under increasing constriction, his cheeks a rising blue.

She turned to the remaining children. That left one of these two as the Uchiha, and it was not the bubblegum.

"Oho, I see the family resemblance."

It was an offhanded remark that Sakura would have ignored had the air not froze, her teammate gone rigid. But before Sasuke could act, a presence flickered behind him. Fingers relieved him of the shuriken hidden in his grip. "Just kidding," Anko whispered in his ear. "This level of skill isn't even a shadow of your brother's."

Sasuke lost control and _screamed_, twisted around with a kunai for a reverse-grip stab.

He was slammed into the ground.

"Quite the eye candy though," Anko chuckled, her breath tangible on his skin. They were close enough for Sasuke to see the individual weave of her mesh shirt, feel the weight of her pendant on his chest. Gritting his teeth, he fought to free his wrists against her grip. When that failed, he kicked.

She not only caught his ankle but lifted it. "You're only making this easier for me, kitten." The mirth in her eyes matched the shine in her teeth.

Sasuke stopped, a cold sweat down his back.

While one of her teammates got molested and the other faced asphyxiation, Sakura contemplated her own options. She shifted her eyes, half-tempted to take advantage of her insignificance and leave. In the end, she settled for diplomacy.

"Um, I apologize for my teammates' outbursts, sensei, but if you do not let them go, then I'll have to..."

The woman rotated her head a frighteningly unnatural, if not impossible, angle in her direction. "To what?"

Sakura swallowed at the impenetrable smile. "I'll have to file a report for inappropriate conduct," she said, serious.

There was a pause. Then, a burst of laughter.

At a beckon, the anaconda threw its victim. Sakura caught Naruto in her arms before colliding into the trunk of a tree. Sasuke slammed into them a second later, and Sakura felt the last of her breath exit through her spleen.

"I think I like this team," Anko said, petting her snake summon. "Name's Mitarashi Anko. Feel free to look me up in binder 412, sector B of those stolen files you got there."

Sakura withdrew her hand from the satchel as if burned. However, Anko showed no interest in turning them to the authorities. Instead, she threw a kunai. It impaled the bark a centimeter from Sakura's ear, a paper note dangling off the edge.

"As you've probably realized, we jōnin are allowed to impose an assessment test on you twerps. Well, there's mine." She turned her back to the trio and signed her farewell, as if they just had a pleasant conversation on the street. "G'luck!"

The anaconda spiraled around her body, and both disappeared.

After they were sure she was gone, Sakura tugged free the note. On it were two words.

'_Feed me_.'

.

"And we thought Kakashi was lousy," Naruto wheezed, rubbing his neck.

Beside him came another blast. Sasuke breathed heavily before the obliterated post. "How that degenerate even got into the system is beyond me." He stabbed a kunai into the dirt, finished. "I say she disappears."

"Aw, scared the big bad sensei will steal your virtue?"

Naruto's laugh was shut up by a glare.

"Actually, it says here she's a sex offender." Sakura pulled free a list of misconduct. "And a registered pedophile?"

While Sasuke fought to not strangle himself just then, Sakura read through the rest of their new teacher's profile. Kakashi had been trained in silent killing, a solo agent sent to perform assassinations with the highest discretion. In contrast, Anko specialized in team infiltration, and most of her operations appeared to be DA. Which, translated for Naruto, meant _boom_, get in, blow everything up, _boom_, get out.

Disregarding their personal judgment, it became apparent why the Hokage kept her active despite the criminal charges. Besides Kakashi, no one had a mission record that extensive or a success rate that high.

"Well, she's qualified, but does she suit our purposes?" Sakura mulled, examining the spread of documents in whole.

"Or should we replace her with someone more controllable," Sasuke said.

"Or you know, turn her into one." Naruto cracked his knuckles, his humor gaining an edge of mischievousness. "Who's up for teaching our new _sensei_ a lesson."

A pinch of his ear dragged him back in place. "Don't epically piss her off just yet," Sakura said. "Like it or not, that woman is now the main voucher of our paycheck. We can't afford to create unnecessary strains in our relationship." She turned to Sasuke. "While I'm all up for getting assigned a better sensei, what are the chances we do? In terms of competence, I doubt we'll get any higher."

After an extended silence, Naruto asked, "So... pedophile snake lady it is, then?"

They came to a mutual agreement. Now, for the test...

That night, the air steamed in savory delight. Expanding across the table were golden crisped perfection, cuts of steaming fish, silken cubes of tofu, skewers of sesame wings, and the peaks of crab legs amidst a nest of mushrooms, all complete with an assortment of sweets and the finest liquor.

Sitting across in the restaurant table were Naruto, still in dismay over his wallet, Sakura, twitching with exuberant amounts of hospitality, and Sasuke, holding trap wires under the table in case this plan did _not_ end in disaster.

Anko stared at the food. Then, with a hearty smile, she crushed the trio in a hug. "I _knew_ we were going to be BFFs!"

Without further ado, she proceeded to munch down. The plates emptied in astonishing time, enough to make Naruto stop coveting his wallet and snatch up a pair of chopsticks. "Oi, leave some for me!" he yelled, working to fill his own bowl. Several minutes in, Sakura lost to temptation, discarded all civic manner, and wolfed down as well. Which just left Sasuke watching with general distaste, trying to not twitch as food particles smacked him in the face and hair.

At the very least, their teacher passed them. By the twentieth slam of her sake cup, she exhaled in satisfaction. "Pack well, kittens. We going hunting the morrow!"

True to her word, Iruka experienced an aneurism the next day when a cannonball shot into the window of the Mission Assignment Office. Anko walked past the shattered glass.

"Alright, we're going to need a mission here! No, not that one. No. Not a chance. Hell no. Fuck that!" Before the Iruka knew it, Anko had taken an assignment scroll. With a grin, she stabbed a kunai into the name of one client. "Give us him."

"That's an B-rank mission!" Iruka cried.

Anko frowned at the B-scroll, then tossed it aside in favor of another one. "Yeah, you're right, too pussy. _This_ one."

Iruka turned to the Hokage in hopes that he would tell the madwoman that no, freshly-made genin did not take on an A-rank missions. Unfortunately for him, the Hokage was too exhausted to deal with this after reasoning with Gai minutes prior. "Just don't get them killed."

"Hokage-sama! You can't be serious! This is-"

Iruka found himself pulled across the desk, hazel eyes blaring into his. "None of your business."

"Yes it is. Naruto, Sakura, Sasuke, those were my students-"

"_Were_." Grin never fading, Anko dropped him flat on the desk. "_Were_ your students."

On her way out, she threw the mission scroll to the team. "Ever broke into prison?" she asked.

When they shook their heads, she chuckled. "Let's hope your last mission wasn't a fluke then."

.

"That was FUN!" Anko exclaimed, marching back toward the village gate.

Behind her tagged three bleary-face, disenchanted pupils. Who may or may not have undergone starvation and torture. Everything hurt. Everything. Sakura could feel the laceration on her back reopening, and while she was carrying a limping Naruto the day prior, she now needed the support of Sasuke to keep from falling herself. Sasuke did not look like he could last much longer though.

He did not. At the gate, Sasuke collapsed, which led to the inevitable fall of the other two. There was not enough energy for a single complaint.

They were permitted an one-week resting period, spent entirely at the hospital, before Anko dropped down from the ceiling with their next assignment, which upon the completion of, they found the hospital once more. One month in, and they were on first name basis with half of the medical staff.

Sakura was forcing herself to focus on a book, her body switching between needle pain and numb, when a set of footsteps unexpectedly stopped by her door. A figure leaned against the doorway, bouquet of violets in arm.

"She lives." Ino smirked.

"Ino!" Pain forgotten, Sakura bolted upright, only to enter a minor convulsion. The next second, she felt the softness of arm warmers against her back, smelled the earthy perfume in the knit of Ino's dress.

"Whoa, relax there, girl." Ino laid her back down, the bouquet forgotten on the floor. "Heard from Asuma-sensei. Your team got some crazy teacher?"

She. Had. No. Idea.

Sakura swore Anko was intentionally trying to get them killed. And Anko would have succeeded had it not been for Naruto and his rampaging kyūbi mode. No matter how Sakura calculated, not even a team of elite jōnin could have guaranteed survival in Blood Prison, Ryūchidō, Shumisen, and Jōmae. Oh gods, _Jōmae_.

A sympathetic wince. "That bad?"

Sasuke was in a week-long coma. Naruto lost his appetite for ramen. It was _that_ bad.

Ino's gaze fell toward the book in Sakura's lap, a web of neurological code. Her eyes lit in recognition.

"We can't keep surviving off dumb luck," Sakura mumbled, running her thumb over the print. If their team did not expand their arsenal of skills, and fast, they may not wake up to a hospital ceiling the next time.

A poke to the forehead snapped Sakura out of her thoughts. Ino stuck out her tongue. "Well, you aren't going to get far with those shitty textbooks."

Sakura had only been in the Yamanaka library twice. The first time, she wandered into the basement of Ino's home by accident. The second time, Ino's father threw her the key and asked the girls to retrieve a few brushes for him. He had given Sakura a wink. "_We can trust you to not spill our clan secrets, ne?_"

The library was outdated relative to the architecture upstairs. The chestnut floors had abraded into gray, the shelves containing stacks of paper-bound books alongside jars of ink. In bins were rolls of heavier scrolls, untouched for years. The overhead lights flickered unpredictably, but Inoichi never got around to fixing it.

Yet, despite the unremarkable atmosphere, Sakura knew there was more shinobi knowledge in one scroll than the entire public library.

Books of the public library were drafted by government officials, self-proclaimed historians, news reporters, speculation theorists, and the occasional third-rate war veteran. Almost all of them were civilian.

Books of clan libraries were written by the legends of shinobi history. They were written by first creators of any jutsu, the innovators and application experts who documented their findings for the benefit of their descendants. They did not write hearsay, but instructions. _What_ a technique is. _How_ to execute it. _Where_ to modify it.

On the floor, Sakura flipped through their genjutsu section, her notebook blackened with notes. While she studied, Ino studied her, the callouses on her hands, the bandages covering the wounds on her arms and back. Even her face was marred, a particularly rough stitch from her hairline down to her temple.

Her eyes narrowed. "Say Sakura, are your teammates... dependable?"

Sakura stopped her pencil. "We look out for each other's asses. Yours?"

Ino made a face. "Eh. You know we have this family tradition," she said. "Doesn't mean I wouldn't prefer a team with you."

Their eyes met, and Sakura caught a sight of something that Ino's shrug could not brush away. Sakura softened. "You don't have to look over me anymore, Ino."

Ino scoffed. She changed the topic. "What are you studying?"

Tucking the pencil behind her ear, Sakura spread the scroll out wider.

"My team's weakness."

.

Team 7 was not stagnant.

Over the past months, Sasuke had diversified his skill set. While Naruto faced uncontrollable, flaring energy flows and Sakura relied on conscious manipulation, Sasuke found chakra second nature. He could slow his chakra for suppression and fasten it for acceleration, allowing him to reach impossible reflexes. Sakura had also noticed his talent for clever improvisation and good judgment, which made him well suited in the face of emergency interventions.

Meanwhile, Naruto had developed his ninjutsu to unprecedented levels. After examining his abilities, Sakura calculated his number of clones as an exponential decay function with time, with the upper threshold at one thousand clones for twelve seconds. His henge had also extended duration, with improvements on imitating weight, volume, and density. Put together, the two techniques could copy any person or _thing_ they need.

They were speed and versatility, offense and defense, a sword and a shield. But if not properly used, both will break.

Naruto yanked off his IV, while Sasuke strained to pry the comforter off. Sakura clutched their latest mission scroll, watching their teacher flicker out.

"Eh, Sakura-chan, where did Anko-sensei go?"

"Apparently, she had other duties." Sakura crushed the scroll in her grip. "Looks like we're by ourselves on this one."

"What-!" _Thud_. Naruto whipped around to see Sasuke's body on the floor. "Oi, Sasuke!"

Outside, Anko grinned at the yells from the hospital room. As they say, the worst shinobi receives no scars; the mediocre shinobi, some; the good shinobi, many. And the best shinobi, none.

Her team better learn quick.

.

The mission was for another Daimyo with family problems. Great. Red light district. Figures.

The brothel was located in a wealthy, well-protected city. This meant Anko's usual tactic was not applicable. Good, because as great as unleashing god powers on their foes was, Sakura rather not depend on kyūbi chakra again. They would plan, and they would do this without violence.

"There's at least eight guards, and that's only the outer wall," Naruto reported, shedding his disguise. In the hotel room, Sakura stared at the incomplete blueprint. Given the geometry of the land, she estimated at least twenty rooms, not including the guest lounges or massage chambers. If she had to extrapolate their financial figures, then they were looking at approximately thirty sex workers to interrogate and one object to extract. They had five hours.

Going undercover may be the best option, she concluded.

"Eh! But aren't you worried some pervert will touch you and... _stuff_?" Naruto blurted out.

Sakura did not spare a blink. "Who said I would be the one to go undercover?" she said. "This job requires someone attractive." And a flat chested girl with a wide forehead did not fit the requirement.

Sasuke noticed Naruto eye him with an aghast expression. "She isn't talking about _me_," he growled.

It took Naruto more than a minute to process that.

"_Me?!_" he asked Sakura.

"If I remember correctly, you were quite proud to display this so-called _sexy jutsu_ in front of class."

Naruto felt his face flush to the color of a beet. "What, no, that was... that's not-!"

Sasuke smirked at Naruto's panic. "Maybe next time, you'll think before you invent stupid jutsu. Never know when it'll bite you in the ass."

Sakura smiled endearingly. "Or fuck you in the ass."

Naruto backed up into the wall. He could not help but feel ganged up. And exploited.

Thankfully, Sakura dropped the tease. If the plan went successfully, they should be done within an hour with no drama.

"Okay, the plan is simple. Naruto, I need two copies, one henged as a man..."

At that, Naruto blinked in confusion. Sakura could not help but smile at his naivety. "... handsome, mid-thirties. The second, henged as a suitcase of _money_. Now, once you get in, don't freak out if some inanimate object starts talking to you..."

It was a quarter past eight when Sakura positioned herself on a neighboring roof, watching Naruto push open the main door of the brothel. From the shadows, Sasuke had already entered in through the back.

Closing her eyes, Sakura entered a meditative state.

In the darkness of her mind, she focused on Naruto's chakra signature first, weaving through tunnels and strings of light until there stood a door. She had already been given the key to enter.

"All of them, okyaku-sama?"

Grinning, Naruto leaned against the counter, suitcase clicked open. "Will that be a problem?"

When the hostess disappeared to find the manager, Naruto released a breath. He seated himself in one of the chaises and picked up the nearest magazine.

The bikini model on the cover page winked. "Looks like it's going well so far."

"Gah!" Naruto dropped the magazine back on the table.

"I told you to not freak out," the picture said with a growl.

"Sakura-chan?!"

"Don't talk, you idiot." A mouth morphed out of the magazine cover. "Don't look at me either. People will notice."

That was a little difficult to do with an origami mouth floating in front of his face. Just what on earth...?

"You remember in Jōmae when I said I was going to fix our coordination issue?" said the mouth. "Well, this is it. Before you left, I placed a neurological link between our chakra. I'm using that now to access your consciousness and alter your sensory perception. You're basically under a mild genjutsu."

Naruto blinked. And a genjutsu is...?

Sakura wanted to facepalm. "Instead of _earpiece_ walkie-talkie, you have _imaginary_ walkie-talkie. And imaginary walkie-talkie is _me,_" the mouth broke down line by line.

Oh! Cool! Naruto beamed. His lips pulled into a grin. That means he could dial in Sasuke?

"I'm not proficient enough to link you boys directly together, but I have separate line with him, yes."

Eh, so Sakura could listen in to his thoughts too? Heh, she should be careful. For all she knew, Sasuke could be a closet pervert, his mind running with XXX stuff-

The mouth morphed into a fist.

"It's not just hearing and sight that I can alter, you know!"

In the hallways, Sasuke noticed his shadow pop out of the ground, forming a series of calligraphic characters. 'Go to northern wing.' The kanji rearranged themselves. 'Naruto found target. Evidence is a hairpin. Red.'

When the shadows returned to normal, Sasuke flickered out.

.

"Not bad, kittens, not bad."

The team felt their eyes twitch when Anko munched down on another bite of yakitori. "Give me the pin. I'll bird it over to the Daimyo. In the meantime, go fill out the mission report."

Before they could leave the sake restaurant, she beckoned them back, three pieces of paper tucked between her fingers. "A little reward."

Anko smirked at their reaction. "Don't fail me, eh? I'm on a bet with some of the other jōnin instructors. My all-you-can-eat buffet is riding on the line."

The lick of her tongue sent a chill down their spines. No one looked forward to the glorious missions Anko had lined up for them should they fail this promotion.

On the street, Sakura read through her chūnin exam form. It gave little information, just that they had the prerequisites to take the exam. She bit her lips at the stamped date. Seven days from now.

"No, Konohamaru-chan!"

Down the road was a conflict between three Academy students and two foreign nin. Judging from their attire, Sunagakure.

Naruto recognized the student choked by his scarf, held up high by a shinobi in kabuki face paint. "Hey! You fatass, let Konohamaru go!"

"Naruto-!" Sakura reacted too late.

Naruto had already sprinted forth. Three steps in, he lost balance, his butt making an unsightly smack against the road.

Sakura felt her eye twitch.

Konohamaru dropped to the ground after the hit of a pebble. The foreign shinobi massaged his bruised wrist, looking up to see Sasuke tossing another pebble in his palm. "Get lost."

"Why you-" In one motion, the shinobi had unbound the life-sized package on his back.

The air changed. The kunoichi accompanying him shifted form. Sakura tensed, a kunai hidden in her grip, eyes locked on the package. Sasuke flash-stepped in front of his teammates, poised but ready.

The three Academy students glanced back and forth between the two sides, until a new voice caught their attention.

"Stop, Kankurō. You're an embarrassment to our village."

Hanging upside-down from a nearby tree was one more shinobi, wrapped in a cross of scarves, a gourd-shaped container holstered on his back. His eyes were as dead as his voice, encircled by rings of black.

The shinobi named Kankurō froze. "G-Gaara. Listen, they-!"

"Shut up, before I kill you."

While Kankurō gave a shaking apology, Gaara flickered down. Straightening from his crouch, he stood as leader of their group. "Pardon this inappropriate behavior." To his team, "We're leaving."

"Hold it."

They turned around to see Sakura step forth. "State your purpose in our village."

Scoffing, the kunoichi held out her visitor's pass. "The chūnin exam, if that wasn't obvious."

Before she could leave, Sasuke spoke up. "And your name?"

The kunoichi looked surprised, before her expression softened. "Temari." She examined him with intrigue. "Yours?"

"Uchiha Sasuke."

Her intrigue intensified. "Well then, a pleasure."

When they disappeared, a bewildered Konohamaru turned to Naruto. "Wah, that was amazing, nī-chan!"

Naruto rubbed his neck in embarrassment as the three students gathered next to him, fawning.

"What a standoff, Leader!"

"You must tell us who are the two ninja with you!"

"Yeah, they're so cool!"

Naruto collapsed. "What?"

"You know, the no-nonsense kunoichi with the pink hair? And the shinobi with her, the one with the handsome looks!"

"Oi, wait, I'm just as cool as them!"

"You _sucked_, nī-chan." A disappointed waterfall of tears fell down Konohamaru's face. "I needed you most, and you just trip like that. How pathetic..."

Their voices faded in the distance.

Sakura turned another corner. "That was no trip," she told Sasuke through genjutsu. No matter how she replayed the scene, physics did not work like that. Something had to be pulling Naruto's bottom weight forward for him to have fallen backward. "Any chance you caught what that Kankurō guy did?"

Sasuke walked beside her, eyes up front. "It wasn't wire," he mentally replied.

She processed that information.

"The Gaara person. I failed to sense him too."

Her eyes widened. For Sasuke to not detect a presence...

"Sasuke-kun, I'm going to need you and Naruto to do some reconnaissance." Other competitors would have already arrived in Konoha. "I want to know what we're getting into." The more they knew about their opponents, the greater their advantage.

They passed by the eyes of another foreign squadron, hidden in the shadows of a tree. Pocketing his hands, Sasuke chuckled. Looked like said opponents were already one step ahead of them.

"Yeah, sure." Before they parted ways, he had one question. "Why did you make me ask the kunoichi for her name?"

Sakura hid her grin.

.

Temari fashioned the obi of her bathrobe, letting her hair hang low. "What did you think of those Konoha nin?"

On the couch, Kankurō growled, sharpening the tip of a blade. "They piss me off."

Scoffing, Temari slid open the window of their inn. Her eyes widened.

After a wipe, Kankurō examined the gleam of his weapon. "They're interesting though, won't deny that." A coat of poison dripped along the edge, fading as it dried on the metal. "Uchiha, was it?" He looked up, staring at his sister's back. "And we thought they had gone extinct."

Temari watched the messenger hawk fly off into the night sky. _For Temari, of Sunagakure._

She flipped over the card. _May we see again._

With a smile, she twirled the blood-red rose left in her hand. "Apparently not."

.

Tenten stepped toward the two shinobi guarding the classroom door.

"Won't you please just let us through-"

Tenten fell back in the same motion as the punch. On the floor, she applied another henge on her cheek. She made the bruise look particularly brutal this time and inwardly grinned at the nervous crowd. One of the guards even said a few words that managed to discourage a wave of genin to leave altogether.

At Neji's nod, they readied to file out, pretending to join the discouraged genin, when another Konoha team entered the hallway. Surprisingly, they looked even younger.

"You mind letting us pass?" In front was a boy with dark eyes. He looked smug, and despite her better judgments, attractive.

The crowd diverged to allow the team to pass through the hallway. As he walked by, his grin widened. "And you two, why don't you take down that genjutsu as well. No one's falling for it."

The guard chuckled, impressed. Without warning, he dropped on his palm, coming up with an aerial kick. The boy reacted in time for a counter kick. It would have worked too, had Lee not flashed in between and blocked both strikes.

While Tenten watched, amused, Neji rose up. "What happened to the plan?" Their injuries faded, the pretense over.

That was when Lee turned his attention toward the kunoichi on the boy's team, some girl with rosy hair. Oh _no_. Tenten shook her head. Lee had always a soft spot for girls in pink.

"My name is Rock Lee! What's yours?"

The girl remained cautious. "Sakura."

"Do you want to go out together? I'll protect you until I die!"

When Lee struck his nice guy pose, complete with sparkling teeth and thumbs up, Tenten died of mortification. She shielded her face, only to realize that the girl had not backed away in horror. Instead, she was… blushing?

"I'm very flattered, Lee-san," Sakura said sweetly. "But I'm afraid my heart is already taken."

Lee froze into a statue, ready to crumble to dust, when Sakura glanced to the side, a finger at her dimple. "But you know what they say, a woman's heart is like the spring sky, no? Maybe you can help me win it back from the ones who had stolen it."

Bait, hook, reel. "Who!"

Deadpanned, Sakura pointed to the two boys beside her. "Defeat them, and I'm yours."

"Wait what, Sakura-chan-!"

One second later, both her teammates hit the ground like bricks, as an eager Lee flashed before her again, hair swaying and eyes glowing with hope. Sakura blinked. Well then…

Tenten dropped her jaw, as Lee marched down the hallways in victory. A giggling Sakura wrapped around his arm, while the rest of the shinobi hooted and cheered them on.

What- Why- Did Lee- Did Lee just procure himself a _girlfriend_? "Neji, am I caught in a genjutsu?"

Neji massaged his temples, as the surrounding genin examined their upheld thumbs, marveling at its power to pick up girls. Some things, not even genjutsu could create.

.

Naruto massaged his jaw on his limp to the testing room. "I can't believe Sakura-chan left us for some thick-brow nerd," he whined to Sasuke, who cracked his shoulder back in place.

"She didn't leave us," Sasuke growled. She created a connection with a member of another team, a team that she judged was stronger than them. Stronger than _him_.

When the door opened, Sasuke saw that was not all her work in the past week. Amidst the hundreds of shinobi gathered in the testing room, a group waited for them.

Ino of the Yamanaka clan. Chōji of the Noble Akimichi clan. Shikamaru of the Nara clan. Hinata of the Noble Hyūga clan. Kiba of the Inuzuka clan. Shino of the Noble Aburame clan. Sakura had collected their former classmates, each from the most prestigious of backgrounds, into one alliance.

The room hushed when the examiner entered alongside a group of chūnin. Unraveling from Lee, Sakura listened to him announce a written test.

Everyone reorganized into arranged seating, a paper placed before each genin. Her eyes concentrated on the blackboard, dissecting the rules.

Ten questions, ten points. One point lost for every question incorrect, two points lost for every attempt at cheating. Advancement based on collective team score. Any teammate hits zero, entire team is disqualified. Question ten would not be disclosed until 45 minutes after the exam starts.

Pressing the tip of her pencil against her lip, she gave Naruto a worried look. If he could just get a single question right... She looked over the test.

Her forehead hit the table. Nope! No way Naruto could answer any of this. In fact, she doubted any genin could. The first question was a cryptogram from an advanced code text, an obscure one too.

She sighed.

"I'm going to assume you need help," she mentally contacted her teammates. Naruto and Sasuke fought to not react as numbers appeared on their papers. Ino hid her smile, as she picked up her pencil and traced over the answers.

Sakura glanced over at the chūnin scribbling in their clipboards, marking the people who got caught cheating. It was fine. She was confident in her first nine answers, and the most she would lose for getting caught with genjutsu would be 6 points; each of her recipients, 2 points. In exchange, her team secured 17 out of 30 points.

As time passed, teams began getting disqualified. Sakura never removed her eyes off the proctors, noting their every scribble. 51 teams, 15 disqualified, 468 marks. Another mark, another team disqualified.

Sakura recalculated. She was certain she sat in an entire room of cheaters. Another team gone. 17 teams disqualified. 481 marks, a maximum of 500 points spread amongst the remaining genin. Assuming a normal probability density... Sakura bit her lips. Damn. 17 points may not be enough to rank.

When they hit the 45 minute mark, the examiner stepped up front again. "Before we disclose the last question, let me explain some additional rules. First rule, you may choose whether to take the tenth question or not. If not, then your points reduce to zero."

Sakura waited.

"Second rule," he said, "if you do choose to take it and answer incorrectly, then you lose the right to take the chūnin exam again."

The room burst into outrage.

A bark. "What kind of stupid rule is that!" Sakura recognized the voice as Inuzuka Kiba's. "There are guys here who've taken the exam before."

The examiner remained unfazed. "Heh, you guys were unlucky. This year, it's my rules. Those not confident can leave and try again next year."

Within a minute, someone stood up. Other teams soon followed.

Once Sakura overcame her disbelief, she inwardly punched the air. These events could not have worked better in her favor. The number of genin trickled down.

Excluding hers, 24 teams remained, a maximum of 450 points among them. Each taker presumably had at least 4 points at hand, and given a left-skewed distribution...

A team only needed 14 points to rank. Her team had 17 points. Deduct 6, add 3. 14 points. It was a mathematical win.

She paused. Who should she share her answer with? She could only risk genjutsu one more time. Ino was fine; she had her clan's technique. That left either Naruto or Sasuke. One of them would have to fend for themselves. Crap.

She was snapped out of her thoughts by the bang of a table.

"Oi, are you done?" Naruto yelled. "None of us are scared by your stupid question, so let's get a move on!"

The examiner exchanged a look with the rest of the chūnin proctors, then congratulated everyone on passing.

Sakura collapsed. Say what-?

The examiner revealed the true purpose of the test: to assess their intelligence gathering skills. As for the last question, it was to make them choose.

"Say your mission is to steal a secret document. The amount of ninja, their abilities are all unknown to you. And of course, there could be traps. Now, you don't want to die, you don't want your comrades hurt, but can you avoid this dangerous mission? The answer is no."

Sakura listened, as the examiner continued.

"No matter what the danger, there are missions that cannot be avoided. Courage, this is the ability to become a chūnin captain. Those who can't put their destinies on the line, who walk away from their chance, the trash who only make cowardly choices don't have a right to become chūnin!" Pleased, the examiner readied to conclude the written test when a figure stood up.

"I say this with all due respect, but that is wrong."

Naruto watched his teammate seethe. "Sakura-chan..."

"Many people left under the assumption that we needed a certain number of points to pass. Those with less than two points remaining were correct to have left the room, else they would have eliminated both themselves and their teammates from future examinations. If you calculate the expected pass rate, teams under twelve points should have left as well."

"Girl, you have missed the entire point-"

"There is a difference between unavoidable dangers and unnecessary risk. That was not a display of cowardice, but prudence. Likewise, what you described promotes not courage, but recklessness." Sakura gripped her pencil hard. "In this test, only those who gave accurate assessments of their capabilities should have passed, while those who overestimated themselves deserved to get penalized."

From the back, another figure stood up. "I have to agree," Neji said. "We stayed because of our skills, not because of fool's luck."

In the far right, Temari smirked. "I say we get the tenth question!"

A hand rose in the back. "Seconded."

"Yeah, what the hell!"

While the genin reached consensus, the row of chūnin proctors leaned forward, engaged. One of them passed the examiner a note. His expression changed, and Sakura grew numb when his eyes stared directly into hers.

"If you kids want to play, we'll play." A sadistic smirk darkened his features, while the rest of the proctors reclined in their chairs, ready to enjoy the show.

.

In the emptied classroom, Ibiki recounted the tests. Nineteen teams passed.

"How is this possible?" he asked, slamming the tests on the table.

"Give us a second. Tobitake and Tatami are tracing the information source now."

The two proctors handed Ibiki a clipboard.

"Ibiki-san, we've cross-referenced each genin with their information source. The ones with the blue lines had gotten the incorrect answer from our planted chūnin. The ones with the red lines had gotten the correct answer."

Ibiki followed the red arrows down to their origins. Two spots? The first was seat number 53. His eyes went toward the spot, and his mind flashed back to the bang of the table. That boy. The next source was…

He placed down the diagram in favor of the test pile again.

He held two test papers before overlapping them to show them identical, right down to the team identification marker. After further scrutiny, he identified the original from the replica. With a pen, he drew one final arrow on the seating diagram, until every red line flowed toward one lone point.

Haruno Sakura.

He could not help but chuckle. So that was why she was so vocal earlier. She wanted the tenth question.

Because out of everyone in the room, she was the only one who could answer it.


	4. Predator

"You're so beautiful!"

"No, you are!"

"No, you!"

Tenten hid behind her palm when the two lovebirds rubbed noses. Ever since Lee met that girl, they had been inseparable.

Beside her, Neji observed the display. His eyes narrowed when the girl leaned closer, whispering something in Lee's ear.

"I don't trust her."

"Think she might be using him?" Tenten asked.

Neither were sure. Lee was a walking fashion disaster, and his antics could be off-putting. Then again, some girls fell hard for strength and showmanship. The affection could be honest.

Lee twirled the girl in the air. She laughed in delight.

The veins around Neji's eyes retracted. He would continue to keep an eye on them, but for now, she did not appear a threat. Her chakra level was lower than that of a regular genin, channels thin enough to be civilian.

Further down the path, Naruto grimaced. He covered his eyebrows with two fingers each, eyes peeled wide.

"Oh, look at me," he imitated, "so beautiful, har har-!" An elbow lodged in his skull, as a returned Sakura huffed. Sasuke did not blink.

Nineteen teams stopped before a four-story chain fence. Beyond the fence laid wilderness, an entanglement of vines and roots encapsulated by shadow. Trees towered, blanketing the sky from view.

In front stood Anko, their second examiner. She eyed the genin hungrily. "Welcome to the Forest of Death."

The second test would be survival. One arena, tower in the center. 10 kilometer radius, 44 gates. Two types of scrolls, Heaven and Earth, one scroll per team. Reach tower with both scrolls within five days, with all team members alive. Open scroll, and instant disqualification. Anko directed everyone's attention to a booth, where they can exchange their waiver forms for a scroll and starting gate.

Sakura latched onto that last bit of information.

As soon as Anko concluded, everyone rushed to sign their waivers. Naruto dropped his pen, ready to join the other genin, when Sakura grabbed his jacket.

"Sakura-chan?"

Sakura held him in place, watching the line form. "No."

Confused, Naruto held onto his paper. Sakura watched the first team in line disappear into the booth, then the second. "Not yet."

Ino smirked. Hinata tugged Kiba's sleeve.

Before the booth, Kankurō glanced back to see a cluster of rookies linger behind. To Temari, he chuckled. "Look, examiner's words scared them brats off."

Temari followed his gaze, skeptical. Only until she stepped inside did she understand.

Against the fence, Anko grinned when Team 7 finally lined up.

Naruto threw his arms up. "Anko-sensei! Any advice?"

Anko waved them off. "Yeah. Have fun!"

.

Teams rushed to line up for the booth. Made sense. The first team in line had top pick for a gate. The best starting position was upstream. Travel was safer and faster. The river provided a reliable food source, as well as the opportunity to poison opposing teams.

Team 7 would pick last.

This was not a battle, but a war. And to win a war, they needed an upper-hand in three things.

Information.

Troops.

Territory.

The last team lost initial terrain advantage, but gained _information_. They could see which gates were chosen, the locations of all other genin. More importantly, their own position would be hidden. By going last, Sakura guaranteed them twenty minutes free of enemy ambush.

She swung around a branch. With a flip, she landed in the clearing ahead.

There, Ino placed a hand at her hip. Hinata gave a shy smile. Those twenty minutes of would be just enough time to gather _troops_.

"Don't get the wrong idea." Kiba sneered, leaping up on a branch. "We don't need your help. But Hinata thought you losers might need ours."

"Why you-!"

Sakura dragged Naruto by the ear. "Thanks, Hinata." To the other two members of Team 8, she nodded. "Everyone here would benefit from your expertise. We're in your debt."

Hinata fidgeted with her fingers. She glanced in Naruto's direction, before her blush deepened. "No problem. I think sticking together is a g-good idea."

With Hinata's eyes, Kiba's nose, and Shino's ears, their group avoided every obstacle with ease. Together, they could now secure a crucial _territory_. The tower.

Forget hunting enemies. That expends too much energy. Forget baiting enemies. That wastes too much time. No, it was best to establish the tower as base. All teams must reach the tower to pass. Right before they do, ambush them and take their scrolls. Seize control of the tower, and seize control of the whole game.

Hinata retracted her Byakugan. "One kilometer aw-"

An explosion.

"Hinata!"

Kiba swerved to catch his teammate. Shino shot back at the wall of scales. Shikamaru pulled Chōji by the scarf, just as a snapped branch crashed into the earth.

Sakura paled. Her gaze jumped up, higher and higher. On top of the monster snake was a silhouette.

The shinobi lowered his hat, painted lips twisted in a smile. "My, the best of Konohagakure, all in one place."

This... this was not factored into her calculations.

And just like that, Sakura watched her entire plan turn to shit.

.

Akamaru whimpered, burying himself deeper into Kiba's jacket. Shino pressed his back against a tree. Ino hid her teammates under the debris.

Laughing, the shinobi dug his nails down his face. His flesh peeled, as easily as those of a corpse off a skeleton.

"I wonder... out of the nine, who will survive?"

The air screamed in blood, every sense invaded by the stench of death. Sakura felt the kunai in her grip shake, then drop. Her knees caved in.

"Sakura-chan?! Sasuke!" Naruto shouted when Sasuke fell too, numb.

This shinobi. Something was off about him. Something inhuman. Dangerous. Sasuke caught a flash. He needs to move. _Move_.

Before the kunai could impale Naruto in the back, Sasuke grabbed his teammates and flickered them out of range.

"We need to get out of here." Sasuke controlled the tremble in his voice. His hand wrapped around the handle of his own kunai and yanked it out of his thigh. His pupils contracted at the pain, more blood dripping down to his ankle, more adrenaline flooding into his veins.

Adrenaline was good. Adrenaline saved him more than once. On all of Anko's stupid missions. In the Land of Waves. During that night, the night with the moon, the only night to ever trigger this deep of a panic, when-

"On three, Naruto, we bolt for that tower. There might be proctors inside who can protect us."

"But the exam-!"

"_Fuck_ the exam."

Sasuke took out their Heaven scroll. They could use this to bait the enemy shinobi away. Sakura was still in shell-shock; he would have to carry her. As for Naruto, he could use kage bunshin as the distraction.

Naruto's expression darkened. He stood up.

"Naruto-!"

"Pathetic." Naruto walked back into the open field. "You are all _pathetic_!"

He pointed at the shinobi perched on top of the snake. "One person. We are nine. Aren't you supposed to be from the best families in this village? Aren't you supposed to be the pride of your clans? The strongest, the smartest people around? I call bullshit."

"The Inuzuka, nothing but bitches with tails tucked between their legs." Behind the bushes, Kiba gritted his teeth.

"The Yamanaka, we all know you're bottom feeders." Ino clenched her fists.

"The Nara, a bunch of lazy bums." Shikamaru grimaced, ignoring the sweat down his back.

"The Akimichi, useless fatsos." Chōji heaved, nostrils flaring.

"The Aburame, insignificant pests." Shino said nothing.

"The Hyūga, second-rate freaks." From her huddled position, Hinata lowered her eyes.

Naruto glanced at the shadows. He sneered. "And the Uchiha… one little scaredy cat."

"So hide. Run. Like Sakura-chan said, there's a difference between courage and recklessness, and she's always told me to stop being reckless." His hands formed the seal of the tiger. "Then again, she's also told me to know my strength."

An army of kage bunshin littered the forest. The closest clone transformed into a pair of twin swords, as Naruto locked sight with his target. "And I know my self-worth."

The silence broke.

Kage bunshin charged from all directions. Half incinerated in fire. The shinobi launched kunai at the remaining clones. His targets evaded through a mid-air transformation, sharpening into metal. High level henge, he mused.

In a series of leaps, the shinobi avoided the rain of weapons, only for the closest to transform back into human form. Naruto pulled out the two swords behind him, spinning forward with a double swipe. Nothing. He froze at the shadow cast from above.

Too late. The whip of the snake's tail obliterated him along with the nearby forestry.

The earth shook. Unfazed, the shinobi readied to greet his other prey. In his face was a human catapult. "Oi, lipstick man!"

My, doesn't this one have some kick to him. Grin deepening, he seized Naruto's fist and flung him away. Too bad he- Two drilling spirals grazed past his sleeve. At his next footing, the roll of a bulldozing meat tank.

"Kiba! Chōji!"

Kiba landed on all fours. "Heh, you can bet that after this is over, you're in for one hell of a beating, Naruto."

Naruto felt someone catch his wrist. "Dobe."

"Sasuke!"

Sasuke swerved an one-eighty, tossing Naruto back as a windmill shuriken.

Behind the eyes of the Byakugan, Hinata watched the real enemy slither across the landscape, unbeknownst to the attacking squad. She croaked. "N-No." The enemy had wrapped around. "N-Naruto-kun..." They could not see.

Hinata charged into the field. "BEHIND YOU!"

Naruto whipped around to see a tongue shooting forth. Shino left his own hiding spot, saving Hinata from an incoming wall of scales.

"This is very troublesome!" Shikamaru scrambled out of the way, as the tail slammed into the ground, sending the world into another earthquake. "We have to- Ino!"

Ino sprinted, sliding into the mud and rolling away from the falling debris. Gasping, she looked at the bundle of pink saved in her arms.

"Sakura!" Ino sat Sakura upright, shaking her shoulders. Sakura said nothing, eyes wide and blank, a dry trail of tears down her cheek.

Shikamaru frowned. "Did the enemy catch her in genjutsu?"

No, Ino recognized this look. She had not seen this look for two years now, but for Sakura to relapse now of all times...

"Sakura, come on, girl. Snap out of it!"

Another explosion, followed by a hurricane of wind. Debris flew past at howling speeds, bullets of rocks burgeoning into Ino's back. Twigs clawed streaks into her skin. Ino pulled the girl in her arms closer, keeping her shielded until the wind settled.

Shikamaru peeked up from his arms. "Shit."

Their group lied in wreckage. Embedded in a crater of bark, Naruto coughed up a mouthful of blood. Sasuke forced himself up.

"Come on, Sakura." Ino pressed one hand against the back of Sakura's head, the other securing her back. "You'll be alright. I know you can do this."

The trembling started to fade. Sakura clutched onto Ino's shoulder, taking one deep breath after another.

"... tower." Sakura broke the croak in her voice. "Everyone escape to the tower…"

"Too late for that. Some will not escape in time." Shino descended. Hinata dropped beside them, clutching her bleeding arm.

"You can thank Naruto," Shikamaru mumbled.

"That…" Sakura lifted her head. "... _idiot_!"

Ino sighed in relief when Sakura supported herself up.

"This foe is too dangerous. A strategy is necessary. We cannot defeat him without one."

"Shino-kun is right. Kiba-kun is the fastest person here, and he cannot land a blow. And there's the s-snake..."

Sakura clutched her head. "Speed can be defeated with the correct cornering. But for that, we'll need massive coordination." That was their only shot. To not attack separately, but together. She looked at everyone. Their numbers were sufficient, but to sync them all...

"What about the shindenshin?" Ino said. "Didn't you develop your genjutsu variant?"

"Yes, but I can't interlink people's consciousness. All communication will have to be routed through me, and that's way too slow."

Shino paused. "To mobilize, insects do not need to be aware of the actions of the entire colony. They need only the command of a higher order. Shinobi are no different. They do not need to think, but to obey orders."

Sakura opened her mouth. "This is a dynamic battle against an unknown enemy in an unfamiliar terrain with nine players," she said. "Exactly who do you propose to command them all, because I can't come up with a plan on the spot and instantaneously readapt if any detail goes wrong."

Silence.

Sighing, Shikamaru rose his hand. "But I can."

.

Closing her eyes, Sakura focused on the chakra signature beside her, weaving through strings of light until she stood before a door. Inside, Shikamaru sat before a shogi board. On the board lied a single playing piece. The challenging King.

Two more doors opened, as Ino and Hinata entered the void.

One by one, Hinata laid down the other game pieces. The final two pieces, the reigning King and Dragon, she placed at the upper right and center respectively.

For every piece Hinata laid down, Ino summoned a door, until a ring of doors surrounded them, a kanji engraved on each one.

Rook. Bishop. General. Lance. Knight. Pawn.

Back in the physical world, Sakura interlaced fingers with Ino, completing the seal of the ram.

Shikamaru glanced over at them. "Ready?"

Sakura exhaled. "Game on."

As Naruto dodged the next attack, a familiar voice rang in his head.

"Heh, no problem."

Nine kage bunshin descended onto the field, their palms against the wall of scales. Feet slid against the ground, a glow of chakra at the heel, until the snake grinded to a halt.

Glancing back, the kage bunshin chuckled at a bewildered Chōji. "Hey fatass, how would you like a gift?"

Before Chōji could answer, a clone jumped on him from behind, chaining on as an iron-spiked jacket.

_The pawns use numbers to guard and supplement ally pieces._

While a metal ball rolled the snake into a domino of trees, Kiba and Akamaru spun in the air. "Yahoo!"

They landed beside the amputated snake tongue.

Kiba shook the blood off his newly acquired metal claws, appreciating their gleam. Heh, not bad, dead-last, not bad.

_The lances exert direct frontal force to push enemies back to defensive lines._

A set of windmill shuriken from opposite directions. The shinobi slipped into the gap between the two spinning blades, not a hair astray.

Naruto caught Sasuke's weapon, Sasuke caught Naruto's. They pulled. The shinobi found himself immobilized. He glanced down to see wire constrict his body.

From the wire came a stain on the fabric of his clothes. Oil.

Fire traversed down one end of the wire.

_The bishop and rook fight in synchrony on opposite sides, covering what the other cannot._

Not enough. Chōji fell down the mouth of the snake. Fire touched air, as the shinobi melted through his constraints and into the branch below.

Behind the Byakugan, Hinata traced his escape. The reigning King slipped back; the Dragon speared forward. Her fingers paused on the playing piece before she lifted the tile up, the game board stretching into three dimensions.

The ring of doors spun. Eyes shut, Ino redoubled her chakra, sending all of them flying open at once.

_The generals stay behind to reorganize mobilized troops._

Behind Naruto, a face melted out of the tree. Before the shinobi could slice his neck, Naruto was tugged forward by the windmill shuriken in his grip, yanked off the branch and into free-fall.

Sasuke dived forward. The tips of their fingers brushed. Gritting his teeth, Sasuke refocused his chakra, and Naruto felt an invisible force connect them. Their hands interlocked.

In darkness, Chōji fumbled for a container with three compartments. He opened the middle compartment. "You want to eat, let's EAT!"

Midair, Sasuke wrapped his arm around Naruto and flipped their positions. Naruto flipped back on bottom, only to get flipped again.

Shikamaru smirked when the belly of the snake expanded three-fold, a spike punctured out from under the skin.

Shino watched the shinobi slither toward the falling boys, kunai in hand.

_The knights wait in the shadows for the opportune time to strike._

The snake sawed in half from the inside, bisected down to the tail. Freed, a blood-lathered Chōji unraveled from his bullet tank form. His armor shrunk with him, the spike on the back unlocking into a parachute.

A spiral made collision. Separating from their double beast form, Akamaru barked, watching the dead snake topple east.

_Check_.

The shinobi froze, looking up to see Naruto and Sasuke halted in their fall, suspended two meters above ground. In their hands were each other's windmill shuriken, a wire strung between them, wrapped around their bodies five times, before soaring up into the skies and looped around a branch.

In their dangling position, their shadow was enough to connect the shadow of the snake with the shadow of their enemy.

A swarm of insects buzzed.

Naruto chuckled. "Sayonara, sucker!"

The insects shot into the shinobi's mouth. Shikamaru held his position as Shino's insects devoured their target from the inside out, crawling out from the nose, ears, and eye sockets.

_Checkmate_.

.

Anko slammed down her cup of juice and sighed in content. Throwing the last dango skewer, she readied to leave for the tower when Mozuku descended before her.

"We've got trouble, Anko-sama!"

Three bodies sprawled behind a wall of zen monk statues, faces melted off.

Well, shit.

She turned to the chūnin squadron. "Alert the Hokage!"

Anko leaped through the forest at full speed. The sky had already fallen to dusk when she detected a presence. A tongue snatched her wrist before she could throw her daggers.

No matter, she loved to improvise. She yanked the tongue, pulling his body out of its hiding spot and into the opposing tree. Pinning him, she dug a kunai through both their hands for a double assassination. She stopped.

"Really, Anko. You're now a tokubetsu jōnin, and a sensei too. Should you still be using those forbidden techniques of mine?" In the distant shadows, viper eyes watched her, fondness mixed into cruelty.

As Anko whipped around for a second attack, he rose a finger. The gesture sent her to her knees, neck searing with pain.

She gritted her teeth, voice laced with poison. "What's a bastard like you doing here."

"So cold, Anko," Orochimaru tsked. "If you must know, I'm here for some, ah, recruitment. These kids are quite charming."

"For you to show yourself like this, one must have really caught your eye."

He gave an indulgent smile. "Hm. I admit, the Uchiha child was beautiful."

Anko's eyes narrowed. Orochimaru caught the assailing dagger between his fingers, amused by her regained strength when her arm locked around him in a chokehold.

"Sorry, but I have dibs on that boy."

"Since when did you become so possessive." He laughed. "Relax, I didn't touch him."

Orochimaru did hear wonderful rumors, the last Uchiha blood of Konoha, an avenger. Yet, in that last skirmish, the Uchiha child left himself tangled and exposed. As _bait_. It was a pity, but he did not have what Orochimaru wanted.

The body in Anko's grip collapsed into a pool of snakes.

His voice echoed across the leaves. "I settled for the consolation prize."

.

Neji frowned. "Slow down, Lee."

Lee bounced off a man-eating centipede and onto the next branch. "But Sakura-san said she'd be at the tower! We can't keep her waiting!"

"I doubt her team would get there before us," Tenten said. "And should we be expending all our energy now? Wouldn't it be better take it slow, then attack at dawn?"

Lee was not listening, ricocheting through the landscape. Tenten sighed, forced to follow.

As expected, the tower was desolate. While Lee jumped back and forth between posts, eager at any shuffle or movement, Tenten settled for steps by the entrance.

Neji turned his back.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"If we're going to make this our site, we might as well start collecting food and water. It'll be a while before any teams arrive."

"Let me help, then."

Strategically, the tower had merits. The river flowed straight across, bridges on either side, so water and food were no issue. Tenten took out her summoning scroll, a variety of equipment appearing before her. She reached for the medicine bottle. First, to test the water.

"Anyone here yet?" she asked Neji, handing him a bamboo cup. She took a sip for herself.

Neji kept his Byakugan activated. After a silence, his finger twitched. "One group just arrived."

Lee flashed before them. "Where!"

"Four hundred meters nor-"

"Sakura-san!"

Neji straightened up. "Wait-!" Too late.

Leaping into the air, Lee spread out his arms in greeting. "Hello, beautiful!" His face made introduction with a wall of sand.

Unfazed, Temari watched some spandex kid drop to the ground.

Lee blinked at the trio before him. "You're not Sakura-san's team."

"No shit."

Temari stiffened at the ominous wave of sand hovering behind them.

"Stop, Gaara," Kankurō said, uneasy. "We've already got both scrolls. Let's just make peace and get to the tower."

The sand became more active, dispersed into the air. "Shut up, you piece of trash."

Temari bit her tongue. They should avoid a match this close to tower. If the proctors caught Gaara losing control, their whole mission could be in jeopardy.

"Now, now, Gaara," she said, switching tones. "It's just a weirdo; we can leave him alone. So please, stop saying such cold things and listen to nē-san, okay?"

Gaara said nothing.

Just as the tension in his shoulders began to relax, Lee raised his hand.

"Excuse me, but if your team has two scrolls, I would like to challenge you for one of them." This Suna team must be formidable if they managed to get this far with both scrolls. It was the perfect challenge. Even better if Sakura-san arrived just in time of his victory! Yes, if he won, then he and Sakura-san were destined to be! And if he lost… no, he would not lose!

Lee shook his fist, burning with passion.

Temari closed her mouth. You know what, nevermind, Gaara can kill the moron.

A gourd cork shot into the air. Beaming, Lee blitzed forward. He came down with a spin kick, only to be blocked by another wall of sand. The sand whipped, sending him three leaps back.

"Lee!" Tenten reached the clearing to see him in combat with an enemy team. Eyes narrowed, she launched a wave of projectiles. Temari blew them away with a gust of wind.

Tenten stiffened at the wooden clanking behind her. She whipped around to see a blade stopped a centimeter short of her neck. The puppet fell limp. Neji lowered his two fingers.

Kankurō took a step back at the Byakugan. Shit, that guy could see chakra strings. Worse, he could cut them.

Neji smirked. "Looks like it's three on three now. Tenten, distract that kunoichi long enough for me to break through their defensive."

Tenten had her scroll open. "No problem."

"Careful, that one can see chakra," Kankurō warned. "My puppets are ineffective against him."

Temari's eyes darkened, fan pivoted to her side. "Target the girl, then. I'll separate them."

Just as both sides readied to attack, an earthquake hit. All eyes flew southeast, toward the monstrous snake in the distance, rising above the foliage.

Neji deepened the focus of his Byakugan. "There's a cluster of chakra. At least three teams," he said, surprised.

Lee jumped in elation. "Sakura-san!" In a blitz, he was gone.

Sand suspended in the air, without a target to attack.

"..."

Tenten lowered her scroll, face buried into her palm. "Sorry, our teammate's a little…" When she could not find the word, she settled for a generic gesture and disappeared alongside their third teammate.

Which left the siblings alone in the field, silent.

Kankurō raised his arms. "What the hell was that!"

.

With a swipe, Sasuke freed himself from the wire. He and Naruto landed besides the corpse, just as the rest of their peers gathered.

The insects had dispersed, leaving behind a shriveled body covered by fabric. The face was smeared in a pool of blood, eyes hollowed, cheeks sunken. Shino took no risks with this one, targeting the brain first.

Ino averted her gaze. "Who do you think that was?"

Akamaru jumped back into Kiba's jacket.

"Not a genin-level shinobi, that's for sure." Kiba snorted, patting his puppy. "Hm?" He noticed something in Akamaru's mouth. An Earth scroll.

Sakura's gaze went up to the distant tower. "Let's-"

A chuckle by her foot. Her eyes widened.

"Run!"

In the blur of movement, Ino yanked Sakura out of range. A scream. They slammed into the ground.

The corpse gave birth to a new body, escaped free from its slacken jaw. The shinobi licked his lips. "Ready for round two, my lovelies?"

His body burst into snakes in all directions.

Before Sakura could react, Ino had flipped her under. The snake never struck, sent flying with a kick. Shuriken pinned three other snakes by the neck, while a spin of chakra repelled the final two.

Silence.

Sakura waited, but no more attacks came.

Lee extended a hand. "Hello again, Sakura-san!"

Sakura could not help but laugh in relief. Of all her investments, she never expected this one to pay off. As Lee helped her and Ino up, she turned to everyone else. "Everyone okay?"

Growling, Naruto and Sasuke pushed each other away. Shino lowered his shield of insects. Kiba stood up from his crouch. Flat on his back, Shikamaru grumbled, face buried under Chōji's weight.

"Hinata-sama."

Shaking, Hinata did not get up. Neji froze at the two puncture wounds on her neck, a mark emerging from under her skin.

Hinata hyperventilated, unable to find her breath until another wave of pain set her body on fire. A second scream tore through her throat, louder than before. She screamed until her voice gave away to sobs, tears rolling down her face.

"H-help me," she begged, clutching Neji's wrist as if it were a lifeline. "P-please- _aAAHHH_."

.

Shino removed his ear from the ground. "The snakes were just a diversion. He's escaped."

"We'll get him." Naruto cracked his knuckles. "He'll pay for this."

Under the shelter of a root, Kiba squeezed Hinata's hand. Akamaru whimpered, nudging his nose at the befallen girl. Tenten shook her head, packing up her supplies. "It's not poison."

"Then what is it!" Kiba demanded.

Tenten examined the mark on Hinata's neck, the design of three tomoe. "If I had to hazard a guess, a juinjutsu."

Neji said nothing.

"You did good." Shikamaru lied next to Chōji, who gave a weak smile in return.

Ino hissed as Sakura pressed a damp cloth against her back. "Stay still, you," Sakura growled. Nonetheless, her touches became more gentle. Her gaze dropped at the wreckage of bruises and cuts. "Ino, your team is taking our scroll and heading for the tower."

Ino chuckled. "What, trying to get rid of us?"

Sakura sneered. "Yes, Ino-pig, your team's nothing but deadweight."

Ino grabbed a fistful of Sakura's hair. "Come again?"

All taunts aside, there was truth to her words. Ino was injured worse than her countenance suggested, and Chōji was still fighting off the effect of the curry pill. Team 10 was not in a position to continue. With Hinata down, Team 8 should take the remaining scrolls and get to safety too.

"This places us at a disadvantage."

Sakura ignored Sasuke's thought, wrapping the final weave of bandages around Ino. Team 8 and 10 had already served their purpose of getting them to the tower. It was enough.

Shikamaru supported Chōji. Kiba holstered Hinata on his back. After the two teams left, Sakura bid farewell to Lee too. He gave a thumbs up. "Let's both do our best, Sakura-san!"

On their leap across the forest, Tenten eyed Neji, worried. His movements were marked with an uncharacteristic aggression. She had never seen him so… angry.

Naruto adjusted his headband. "Back to square one, huh."

Sakura stared into the forest ahead of them, then leaped onto the branch above. No, the towers was theirs. No more fooling around. From now on, they would play by her rules.

.

"Hehe, what an idiot, walking out in the open…"

Sasuke hid behind his bangs, hands pocketed. A shuriken flew past his face. Unfazed, he walked on, ignoring the cries of the enemy team.

He cocked his head at the shinobi dangled by their ankles. "That aim was atrocious."

While they struggled with the wire trap, he withdrew his own shuriken. "Your incompetence will cost you."

Sakura looked up, startled by the crack of a branch. Stepping away from the fire, she peeked into the shadows of the forest. "Sasuke-kun?" she asked mildly. "Naruto? That you…?"

A shuffle. Tense, she traced the silhouette moving across the bushes.

"Hey, sorry I'm late!"

She dropped her shoulders. "Naruto."

Before he could say another word, she wrapped her arms around him in a hug. "You had me worried."

"Ahaha, did I…" His smile deepened, a kunai slipping down his sleeve. His eyes widened.

In their embrace, Sakura twisted her kunai in his back. "Yeah, look at how you're bleeding."

She yanked out her weapon, letting the corpse drop to the ground.

Long blonde hair whipped back in the noon sun, droplets of water dripping down bare skin.

"Eep, stop!" Giggles filled the air, as the kunoichi splashed each other.

From the bushes, a pair of shinobi watched the beauties play in the river. Blood dripped down their noses. They did not even see the club coming.

While his sexy clones poofed away, Naruto rummaged their backpacks. He held up the Earth scroll. "Alright, dattebayo!"

Just as he readied to head back to base, he heard a scream. One punch later, he jumped off the monstrous bear.

Karin patted the grass, in search for her glasses when someone placed them in her palm. Fastening them on, she was greeted by a smile. "You okay?"

"Y-yeah…"

Naruto glanced at the Earth scroll in her grip, then his own. He frowned. Sakura was not going to like this but…

"You can do it." He grinned. "But hurry! Only a day left."

Karin sat upright, watching him disappear into the trees. "Thanks," she whispered to the air. "You too."

Outside the tower, Sakura felt her eye twitch at the pile of Earth scrolls. All five of them. "Is this even statistically possible," she grumbled, rubbing her temples.

"Should we burn these extras?" Sasuke asked.

"Not yet." Earth scrolls were rare now. They could be useful as a bargaining chip.

Five hours later, three shinobi struggled through the landscape. From the leaves, a kage bunshin observed them, then released itself.

"One team, four o'clock," Naruto reported.

Sakura nodded, and Sasuke flickered forward to confront the approaching team.

Immediately, the leader of the team held up his hands. "No need for unnecessary conflict, right? Can we please check scrolls first?"

Sasuke scrutinized them further, before nodding. The two sides revealed them at the same time. Heaven. Earth.

Bingo. "Do it," Sakura mentally said.

However, before Sasuke could act, the leader of the other team gave a nervous smile, holding up a second Heaven scroll.

"Our team was unlucky. We ended up fighting for a scroll we already have," the shinobi said. "Any chance we can make a trade?"

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. "How does that benefit us?"

"Because most likely you have more than one Earth scroll, but no Heaven." At Sasuke's raised eyebrow, the shinobi explained. "Your team is stationed at the tower. To maintain that position, you would have had to face all other teams who come here. Hence, you have probably more than one scroll in your possession. And yet, you remain outside the tower, which means one of three things: you're looking to pick off more teams, you're waiting to sell your extra scrolls for something useful, or you haven't yet found your matching scroll. The fact that you agreed to check scrolls would put you in the third category. And if so, both our teams can benefit from a trade."

Sasuke smirked. "You've thought this through."

The shinobi nudged up his glasses. "It's more experience than anything. Happens when it's your seventh time taking this exam. So, am I right?"

"You are." Sasuke withdrew a second Earth scroll. "But… those categories you listed, they don't seem mutually exclusive."

The shinobi's eyes widened, before he lowered his head in concession. "That's true. As you can see, my teammates are injured. There's nothing stopping you from take both our Heaven scrolls right now. We can only ask for your mercy, from one Konoha nin to another."

Sakura and Naruto exchanged a look. Sasuke paused, listening for instruction.

"We can accept a trade," he finally said. "On one condition."

Naruto dropped beside him. "You said you've taken this exam before. Then tell us everything you know about it."

Ten minutes later, Sakura lied on the roof, flipping through a pack of ninja information cards. Naruto hunched beside her, peeking over her shoulder. "So one-on-one matches, huh."

Sasuke leaned against the wall. "Anything worth knowing?"

Sakura handed over three cards. Team Gai. "Don't underestimate them."

Naruto dropped his jaw. "Holy fuck, those are some high bars."

"Who else?"

"Our Kusa guy." She passed around the picture of the snake shinobi.

Sakura toyed with one last card. Gaara of the Desert. Something about this guy...

She stowed the cards away, information memorized. They had loitered long enough. "Burn the extra scrolls."

Without looking back, Sakura swung open the door to the tower. "Let them loose, boys."

Naruto unleashed the Earth scroll. Sasuke unleashed the Heaven. The two scrolls unrolled on the floor, intersecting at a cross.

Anko greeted them with a boom.

"Did you have fun?"

.

Dosu lifted a hand. "You little bitch..."

Karin never looked back, both scrolls in arm.

"Guys, I got them!"

They pushed the door open, just as the siren rang.

Karin collapsed onto the floor in a mixture of exhilaration and disbelief, glasses lopsided as the proctor congratulated them as the seventh and final team to pass the second test.


	5. The One Who Will Die Is

In the waiting room, Akamaru huddled against Kiba, ears low.

The darkest hour had passed. Slowly, Hinata regained consciousness, catching the motion of figures above. Her eyes snapped shut again, as a gasp escaped her lips.

One of the medics turned to her teammates. "Do any of you have an analgesic?"

Kiba zipped open his pouch. "Will this work?" He held up pellets of his sister's medicine.

The medic nodded, and Kiba rushed to give Hinata the painkillers.

Akamaru barked at the opened door.

"Wait, where are you going?" Kiba scrambled up, alarmed by the masked escorts. "What's wrong with Hinata? Tell us what's going on!"

The medical crew left with the ANBU, the door locked shut.

From the surveillance room, Hiruzen paused the footage, the curse seal frozen on screen. He turned his back. "Kurenai, contact Hyūga Hiashi."

After Kurenai disappeared, he looked to Anko. "Sasuke remains untouched."

"Checked him myself. Clean as a whistle."

"Keep it that way."

For a member of the Hyūga main family to be brandished with a juinjutsu, Konoha was going to have a paperwork field day. Last thing the village needed was to lose their last Uchiha too.

.

Five Konoha teams. One Suna. One Kusa. In the front stood the Hokage, flanked by proctors and jōnin instructors.

"Before we proceed to the next test," Hiruzen began, "I would like to explain the reason for this exam."

Everyone waited.

"On the surface, this exam is to select chūnin. But there is another reason: to showcase your village's power. In the third test, you will engage in one-on-one duels. Influential leaders from across the world will be watching, evaluating the strength of your countries based on your performances. As such, from now on, you will fight with an intent to kill."

"Wait, you _want_ us to kill each other?" All eyes fell on Kiba.

Hiruzen closed his eyes. "These matches can often be the sole determinator of your home's economy and health. You cannot afford to show anything less than your greatest strength. And as you all should know by now, the greatest strength of a shinobi only arises in the face of death."

"I thought allied countries took this exam together to promote friendship," Tenten said, skeptical. "Won't killing each other and stealing clients further antagonism between the villages?"

"There is some misconception here. The nature of friendship in the shinobi world is not agreement. It is not love. It is simply a reduction of chaos, a type of balance... a type of peace." Hiruzen removed his pipe. "It is anything that serves as replacement for war."

Everyone quieted.

Sakura gave a bitter smile. Well, was this not pragmatic. A single tournament would decide promotions, advertise business, advance politics, and cleanse the gene pool all at once. Even better, the kids would do all the work.

Naruto raised his hand. "Oi, am I the only one who thinks this is fucked up?"

Anko chuckled. Of course it was. But then again, only someone fucked up would sign up for the exam.

One of the proctors flickered in front, a man with a sickly complexion. He greeted the contestants.

"Hello, I'm Gekkō Hayate, your referee. If there are no more questions, then we will start preliminaries. As Hokage-sama said, guests will be attending the third test, so too many uneventful fights will bore them. Those who don't feel confident are encouraged to quit now."

A number of hands rose.

Kiba looked at his teammate. Trembling, Hinata kept her gaze lowered. "Hinata…"

Hayate counted. Four. "Does anyone else wish to retire?"

"Hinata," Kiba repeated. "You're in no condition to fight. Go!"

Hinata bit her lips at the new burst of pain. Blinking back tears, she lifted her hand.

Hayate noted the fifth hand. "Akimichi Chōji, you're dismissed." Chōji gave an apologetic smile, head lowered as he exited the room. To the remaining contestants, Hayate nodded once. "Let us begin."

"Hinata! What are you-!"

Neji glanced aside to see Kiba whisper intensely to his teammate. Hinata shook her head in refusal, hand pressed against her neck.

"We have sixteen entrants left, or eight matches. Winners of each match will advance onto the third test." On the wall, a curtain lifted to reveal an electronic scoreboard. "Let's see who will be in our first match."

The screen flickered to life. One name after the next rolled by. The first name locked.

"Tch."

The second name locked. A nudge snapped Neji out of his thoughts. Tenten nodded toward the scoreboard.

_Uchiha Sasuke vs. Hyūga Neji._

.

Against the railings, Naruto shouted, "Oi, you better not lose, Sasuke!" To Sakura, "Fifty bucks he loses."

Sakura withdrew a bill. "Hundred."

"Nah, two hundred!"

Sasuke closed his eyes, suppressing the urge to flip them the finger.

Across the arena, Neji scoffed. "Your teammates don't seem to have much confidence in you."

"Neither do yours," Sasuke retorted.

Lee threw a fifty into the gambling pile, only to be bashed in the head by his teacher. "What are you doing betting against your own teammate, Lee!"

"But Gai-sensei, don't you know the rule? Whoever you bet on will surely lose!" Lee showed his notebook, pointing to the passage as proof.

Tenten facepalmed when Gai popped open his own wallet.

Sticking out her tongue, Ino placed down her own bets. Naruto nearly dropped his wallet at the roll of cash. "Whoa, you have that much faith in freaky eyes?"

Sakura rolled her eyes. "Of course you'd go against me, Ino."

As Ino joined her side by the railing, Sakura grinned. "Excited?"

Ino eyed the two contestants below in amusement. "Of course. The Uchiha and Hyūga are two of the oldest clans in Konoha, vessels of the purest of all shinobi blood." This was not an ordinary tournament fight; it was a battle for honor.

Below, Hayate spared the two sides a glance. "Remember, you fight until one of you is dead. The fight will also stop if you forfeit, or if one side is rendered incapable." He leaped back. "Begin!"

In one fluid motion, Neji shifted his body into stance.

Sasuke reached for his weapons pouch. According to their intel, his opponent was a short range fighter. As long as he kept at a distance, he would have the advantage.

He flung three shuriken.

They dropped to the ground. Neji smirked, unraveling to his initial form.

Scowling, Sasuke withdrew eight more shuriken, one between each finger.

Tenten smiled, watching all eight get sent awry. It was useless. Neji's kaiten could repel all projectiles. But that did not seem to discourage the Uchiha boy, as he sent more shuriken, without break, until the walls and floors were littered by metal.

Sasuke waited for the precise moment the kaiten began to lose momentum. He pulled.

Thin lines crisscrossed from wall to wall, ceiling to floor, the center of one shuriken to the next. Neji halted mid-stance, in the free spaces between a web of razor sharp wire.

Uh-oh. Sakura backed into the wall, shielding her face from the upcoming fireball. The dojo roasted like an oven, the heat strong enough to burn her skin, ignite her clothes.

Sasuke exhaled, wisps of smoke escaping from his mouth.

Kankurō sweated at the charred walls and floors. What a monster. _Both_ of them.

"Was that it?"

Neji held up Sasuke's last shuriken, still glowing orange at the edges. Every wire lied flat at his feet.

Sasuke tensed. Not a single burn, and he even foresaw the weapon hidden in the katon. How-

Sasuke escaped a strike from behind, but not the shockwave. He landed on a crouch, ignoring the blood at the back of his throat.

Neji's clone lowered his palm. "No wonder the Uchiha are going extinct."

A circle glowed on the floor.

"Also, you're in range," the real Neji said.

Tenten held her breath. It was one thing to take a match seriously. But Eight Trigrams was overkill and Neji knew that. He was not just in a bad mood, he was _pissed_.

It was over. Once the Eight Trigrams started, no taijutsu in the world could counter it. Even at his speed, Lee cannot block Neji's attack. He-

Naruto clutched the railings. "SASUKE!"

The arena exploded.

Hiruzen closed his eyes as the remaining ceiling collapsed, nothing but pieces of dangling pipes and wire. Beside him, Anko threw her fists up. Fuck proctor neutrality, "WHOO! Now that's how you _fight_! You go chew up that pretty ass!"

From the balcony, Orochimaru watched the insignia of the Uchiha rise from the dust. His tongue rolled over his teeth, smile threatening to tear the face of his disguise. Perhaps he had chosen wrong after all.

Sasuke straightened up, face burnt black, splashed with red. Metal, wood, and ceramic weaved down his body, growing out of his flesh like vines.

A hand shot up from the pile of debris.

Neji clutched the wound on his stomach, arm trembling. Had he not shielded his body in chakra, the explosion would have killed him. Not that he wasn't already good as dead. Something warm was dripping down from his right eye. The eye he could no longer see from. The one that might not be there anymore.

The one time Neji did not hold up his defense was during his offense, and the Uchiha took advantage of it. By using a tag to blow himself up.

Sasuke reached into his weapons pouch for the last time. Only three kunai remained.

He could not help but chuckle. So that was how it was going to be.

"_Oh look, it's Sasuke-kun_." A group of Academy students had stopped on the road, examining the school training ground with intrigue. "_What do you think he's doing?_"

"_Something cool, I bet!"_

Sasuke ignored their giggles as they left, his eyes set on the target before him. Sweat trailed down his neck. He took a minute to steady his breath, then jumped.

The sun had angled to dusk when Sasuke landed on the grass for the nth time. He suppressed the raw anger building in his chest as yanked his kunai out from the dirt.

Then, he jumped and threw it again. And again. And _again_.

Metal clicked in the air. One landed further than the others, planted at the root of a tree. Sasuke pretended not to notice his audience when he pulled it out. Many people had walked by, but one spectator remained, fingers looped around the metal chain of the fence.

"_Sakura-chan, there you are!_"

Sakura cringed, then shrunk in defeat, as a final student ran down the road. "_Alright, I'm so pumped! Let's DO this_!" Naruto smiled goofily, until he noticed Sasuke's figure beyond the fence. His smile dropped into a scowl.

Naruto grabbed Sakura by the wrist. "_Come on, let's go_."

"_Don't touch me!_" Sakura pulled free, as if his touch was acid. Nonetheless, she began to follow and-

"_You can't hit the target from behind_."

It was not even a whisper, more akin to a croak. Sasuke made no move to suggest he heard, but she continued.

"_One-point trajectory, two-points, three… it doesn't matter how many kunai you use. It's mathematically impossible_." With that, she left.

The next day, Sasuke practiced in the same spot. Sakura waited for Naruto at the same spot.

The following day passed. Then the week.

The bandages around his hand were torn, his palm bleeding. Sasuke clutched the handle of his kunai harder. Finally, without looking up, "_I saw it done_."

Sakura's eyes darted up from her notebook in surprise.

"_It was done_." He threw the kunai into the ground.

Sakura kept her silence. Sasuke was retrieving his weapons when a sheet of paper stuck through the chain fence.

On the paper were trigonometric diagrams, and proofs that Sasuke did not pretend to understand.

"_It's impossible_," she said softly. "_You can use one kunai to redirect another midair. But you can't use it to hit that angle._"

The paper crumpled. Once the frustration and humiliation and every other emotion that had become associated with _him_ bubbled over, Sasuke asked, "_Then how did he do it. Exactly how do you accomplish the impossible?_"

He did not expect her to have an answer.

The month after, Sakura no longer waited by the fence. Sasuke still did his target practice, but moved on from attempting a reverse hit.

It was in autumn, when red and gold had blanketed every crevice of the street, that he saw her there again. She had no books this time, no backpack. In her hands was a sheet of notebook paper.

"_You don't accomplish the impossible_," she answered.

He looked at the revised diagrams. Amidst all the equations was a dotted arrow, bouncing off at an angle and straight towards the X.

"_You cheat_," she said. "_The person who did it… he cheated_."

How do you cheat?

Launch the first kunai at eye point. Flicker up, Peak. Launch second kunai, range. Launch third kunai, down. Second and third meet at 85 and 35 degrees. Two objects charged with _repulsive chakra_, and ricochet.

Neji lowered the kunai caught in his grip. He bitterly chuckled, as cold metal protruded from the back of his neck. He fell.

Sasuke closed his eyes.

He had stood on his side of the fence.

_Hey, thanks._

But there was Naruto's call again, and she was already gone. He was not even sure the words ever escaped his lips.

.

Hayate waited. Then, he coughed. "Since it appears both sides are down and unconscious, I'm afraid I must declare a double knock-out."

"WHAT?"

The medical crew gathered Neji and Sasuke's body from the debris. Anko grinned, then flickered out. Gai patted Lee on the shoulder, before he disappeared too.

Ino took her money out from the gambling pile. "So close," she teased Sakura. "Had he only stood up for two more seconds, you'd have won."

Meanwhile, the proctor announced a change in location. With the current dojo destroyed, they would continue matches in the underground arena. It was smaller than the first, with a lower ceiling and no balconies. Instead, all spectators watched from the adjacent monitoring room, cut off by a pane of glass.

"This is our last room, so please be mindful of surrounding damage," Hayate said. He motioned towards a screen. As with the scoreboard, names began to spin.

Shikamaru felt the sweat down his neck. This can't be good.

_Nara Shikamaru vs. Rock Lee._

In the arena, Lee did stretches. Tenten glanced at the girl approaching her. The girl had on a pleasant countenance, hand extended. "Ano, Tenten-san, is it?"

"Sakura-san." Tenten moved to give her room. Both turned to the second match contestants.

"You think Lee-san will be okay?"

"What, is there something to worry about?"

Sakura paused. "I guess not. Shikamaru is excellent, but Lee-san is impressive too." One displayed the highest caliber in mental strength; the other physical. "They're both geniuses."

At that word, Tenten quieted. She remembered the time she saw Lee listless, his head pressed against the bark of a tree, knuckles raw. His enthusiasm had sounded forced, and the redness around his eyes had not escape her notice.

"Sakura-san, I think to bank Lee's skills on 'genius' is plain insulting." At Sakura's expression, Tenten smiled. "I don't know about that Nara guy, but Lee did not get his abilities delivered on a silver platter. He worked to get where he is. And yes, he is _very _impressive."

Sakura had not the chance to blink when there was a movement in her peripheral.

"Winner, Rock Lee."

Asuma bit his cigarette, wincing at the crater where Shikamaru lied unconscious. He ran a finger through his hair and accompanied the medics down to the ER. To be fair, Shikamaru never stood a chance against Gai's student. It did not matter how how many brilliant strategies you come up with, if your opponent can move faster than you can react.

Sakura swallowed, before planting on her brightest smile. "Congratulations!"

Lee sent her a thumbs up. Tenten shielded herself from the love-fest, turning to the screen instead.

_Kankurō vs. Tenten._

.

Kankurō set down his puppet. Well, wasn't this his lucky day. No freaky eyes or thick-brow. The girl was the weakest link in their team.

Tenten eyed the puppet. A dagger was hidden in one of its wrists, though she doubted that it would be the only surprise.

"Begin!"

Karasu burst to life, three eyes rolled and teeth clattering. The humanoid puppet floated, then dived toward the kunoichi.

Tenten stripped open her scroll, ready to counter when smoke blinded her vision. The first dagger missed her head by a hair, as did the second and third. The smoke cleared to find her in the swallow stance, all six fist-daggers embedded in the ceiling, floors, and walls.

As Kankurō thought. Like her teammates, this girl was trained with martial arts instincts. Still, he would like to see her avoid _this_.

Each of Karasu's six fists jolted awake, shooting senbon from every direction.

From her stance, Tenten twisted and kicked herself up in a spin. The senbon flew past the spaces between her body.

Sakura sweated, watching one blurry dance of coils and loops, pivot and spin, expansion and crouch, as Tenten dropped to her palm. That's crazy, that's… She turned to Lee. That's not martial arts, is it?

Lee smiled. Of course not. Tenten was often mistaken for a martial artist, but her style was notably different. Her body was never her core, but another accessory amongst many.

Tenten was not trained in martial arts; she was trained in _acrobatics_.

Twin scrolls spiraled the air, unleashing a storm of kunai. Tenten grinned. Her opponent can save his puppet, or he can protect himself, but not both.

Kankurō chose the latter option. He leaped out of range, while Karasu fell immobilized, a kunai stabbed in each joint.

Tenten landed on her feet with a soft thud. "Sorry to say I've disabled your puppet's functions, ne?"

It was not a buff. No matter how he tugged, his traps were jammed. Konoha had definitely upped their game since the last war.

But if she insisted on being a performer, then she could be his lovely assistant. A second puppet hovered behind her shoulder. Before Tenten could escape, chakra strings yanked her body backwards. A series of clicks, and the shell of Kuroari locked close, trapping her inside its barrel body.

Meanwhile, Karasu disassembled. The head and each limb unsheathed to reveal a blade, hovering three-sixty above. They attacked.

Seven stabs, each down to the hilt. The barrel stopped moving.

Lee pressed against the glass. "Tenten!"

Kankurō smirked. "Hey proctor, I win."

His smirk fell when Hayate lazily looked behind him. Kankurō whipped around to see smoke in the place of his puppets.

Amidst the smoke, Tenten held up her summoning scroll. On the parchment were two additional insignia in ink.

Sakura leaned forward, eyes sharp. Incredible. To seal away the puppet from the inside, and remove the both opponent's offense and defense in one go.

"Looks like you're out of ammo," Tenten said with a smile. "Why don't you forfeit?"

Temari grit her teeth. This was a bad match up. A fūton user like herself would have the advantage, but Kankurō was a puppeteer. A puppet was a weapon, and his opponent was clearly an expert in weaponry.

"Come on, forfeit," she mumbled under her breath. Don't keep picking fights with the wrong people...

"_Gaara, stop!_"

A blast of wind had scattered the sand particles across the courtyard. Temari knelt down besides Kankurō, while Gaara stared at them both with dead eyes. Temari shook at the blood on her palm. Her brother's blood.

"_Gaara, this is going too far_," she hissed.

Gaara turned his back. "_He's trash._" He stated it as fact. "_Stop protecting trash._"

After Gaara left, Temari hardened.

"_You provoked him again, didn't you_?" She grabbed Kankurō by the hair. "_How stupid can you get. He will kill you, you understand. One day, I won't be here, and he will kill you, all because you can't keep your stupid head down._" She tossed him back down.

"_I never asked for your help!_" Kankurō bumped shoulders as he ran, eyes averted.

He refused to let himself cry.

Kankurō had yet to exit the corridor, when he caught felt the brush of sand against his ankle. His eyes widened. N-No... Nonono-

Without looking back, he ran toward the adjacent hall and threw his weight against the door. He slammed close the second and third door too, then listened.

At first, there was nothing. But then, a hiss. Nothing more than a shift of air, but the sound was enough to drain the blood from his face.

He backed one step after another as sand crawled from under the crack of the door. Temari's words hit him, and the tears he fought to hold back fell down his cheek.

Nē-san… nē-san, help me, please help me, Gaara's- A touch to his shoulder.

Kankurō jumped, sending the object falling with a wooden clank. From the cloth bundle on the floor peeked a wooden, human-like hand. It was a puppet. He looked up and saw rows upon rows of more puppets. Each were held up the neck by a noose, in sick mockery of execution hangings.

"_This room is forbidden to outsiders_."

Kankurō jumped again, then unwound. At the door was not Gaara, but an old woman.

He moved his mouth to make an intelligible reply. "_I'm the Kazekage's son_."

"_And I don't give a possum's ass_." The puppet on the floor sprung to life, returning itself back on the rack.

Fascinated, Kankurō reached out a hand, only for the puppet to slap him away.

"_Get out_."

"_But-_"

Kankurō felt his body stiffen, before his legs began to awkwardly march towards the exit. Only until the door slammed behind him did his muscles loosen.

"... _hag_," Kankurō grumbled.

Droplets of sweat spotted the ground.

"_Again_."

Temari rose from her knees, inhaled once, and-

Every target sliced to shreds. Her mentors watched, unfazed as the wind flew by their faces, sharp enough to sever a few strands of grey hair.

"_Again._"

While his sister performed the scissor dance, Kankurō lied against the wall, peeling away at a wood block with his carving knife. He strung a piece of metal coil between the two finished pieces, then connected the tips of his fingers to each end.

He let his creation drop. A smile broke from his lips when it floated midair, the joint bending back and forth. So that was how that hag did it...

"_What are you doing_," Temari asked, wiping her neck with a towel.

Kankurō hid his work. "_Nothing._"

The following week, Sukoshi danced on Kankurō's bed, cartwheeling once before ending with a bow. His head nudged up to reveal a laughing smile. "_Booyah!_" The figure tapped Kankurō's palm in a high five.

At the breakfast table, Temari was accepting a cup of tea from their house servant when Gaara caught a peek of something behind Kankurō's shoulder.

"_You have something_."

Temari nearly choked on her okonomiyaki. The last time they broke their routine silence, the cat lost its head. "_What are you talking about, Gaara_," she asked, as calm as her tone could allow.

Gaara did not look at her. "_You have something_," he repeated, eyes locked on Kankurō.

"_I don't know what you're talking about_," Kankurō mumbled. The figure behind his shoulder had disappeared.

It reappeared again in the hallway, as Kankurō followed Temari to the dojo. Gaara narrowed his eyes at the figure popping out of Kankurō's hood. Its head rotated, replacing its smile with a sneer, tongue stuck out.

The next day, Temari found herself restraining her brother. Fresh tears fell down his face.

"_I'll kill you, I'll KILL-_" Kankurō screamed through Temari's sleeve.

Gaara stared at the mutilated figure on the floor, nothing but wooden splinters and a cracked head, split from one eye down to the mouth.

Temari sighed when she found Kankurō still on the floor hours later. "_Come on, you have to eat._"

All the splinters had been carefully brushed into a pile, Kankurō's fingers trembling as he tried to glue the pieces together. It did not work. Sukoshi lied dead, just like everything else Gaara ever touched.

Her patience wore thin, and she yanked him up by the shoulder. "_It's a doll_," she hissed. "_Build yourself another one, if you like it that bad._"

She did not expect to receive the look of menace. Without warning, Kankurō kicked the pile, scattering the pieces in all directions. The half-glued assembly slammed into the wall, falling apart a second time.

"_Kankurō, you're being dramatic-_"

"_Shut up, bitch_."

His head snapped to the side. Temari lowered her hand, jaws locked.

That night, Kankurō's desk was covered by wood chips and dust. He dipped his brush in ink and finished the final stroke. Unlike Sukoshi, Gokegumo was a nasty thing, fifteen centimeters upright, eight appendages, and the meanest face Kankurō could imagine. The only thing missing now was the poison.

Gaara may not have to sleep, but he still has to eat. Gokegumo would crawl into the kitchen quarters and add a little extra in the monster's next breakfast.

"_Whatever you're thinking, it's probably stupid._"

Kankurō froze, knelt before a cabinet, picklock in hand.

Also in the apothecary room was the old woman from before. She worked at the table, unnoticed, shearing the stem of a plant.

Her hands were still focused on the plant when Gokegumo jumped from his back.

"_You made this?_" Gokegumo rotated in the air, each of its limbs in a shimmy. "_What, out to assassinate the Kazekage?"_

Kankurō pulled Gokegumo back to him. "_What, no. I told you, I'm his son._"

"_Glad to see family's off limits._"

At his silence, she cackled. "_I underestimated you. Thought you were stupid, but not that stupid._"

"_You don't understand. I don't have a family_," he hissed. What he had was a portrait of the village leader, a cold-blooded prodigy, and a monster nightmare, a nightmare that killed their mother, killed their uncle, killed their friends, and terrorized him night and day for the past seven years of his life. Out of the entire house of freaks, Kankurō was the only one who could even be considered a normal person.

He stopped mid-speech to see the old woman limp, head hung low. The room was silent.

What- She isn't... she couldn't be dea-

He fell back against the cabinet when her head sprung up. She cackled again. "_Sorry, zoned out on your self-pity monologue there_." With that, she got up from her stool, plant returned to its shelf.

"_I-_"

"_Yes, yes, you, the normal person, sneaking around past midnight, trying to lockpick a cabinet of the deadliest poisons of Sunagakure, so you can carry out some half-assed plan to kill your brother. With a wooden cockroach._"

"_It's not a cockroach, it's a-_"

"_It's a cockroach._"

Before she could leave, he stood up. "_You're not going to stop me?_"

"_Does it look like I care._"

The door slid close, leaving Kankurō alone with his puppet. The longer he looked at it, the less viscous it looked. The drop of its mouth shifted from a scream to a grimace, then to a cry. It really did look like a cockroach, destined to cower in the shadow of others.

He would end up wondering every day. Had he gone through with it when he had the chance. Had he ever stood ground. Ever fought back. How life would have been different, how he would have been different.

Kankurō's shoulders shook. "Like hell I'm giving up!"

Temari closed her eyes. "Kankurō, you fool…"

Tenten rolled back up her scroll while her opponent lied prone, his third and final puppet stabbed into his own chest. She did give him the chance to forfeit.

"Winner, Tenten."

The medic paused as he rolled Kankurō's body onto the stretcher.

"Excuse me, may we speak to the instructor of the defeated contestant?"

Baki approached the door. "What's wrong."

The medic lowered his head. "A moment of your time."

Baki exchanged a glance with Temari, who nodded in response. It was fine. She would keep Gaara under control in his absence.

As Baki followed the medic down to the ER, the screen rolled through names for the fourth match.

_Yakushi Kabuto vs. Hyūga Hinata._

.

When Sasuke opened his eyes, he fought hard to not jerk at the face peering down on him.

"Welcome back."

Anko stopped his struggles with the grab of a coil. All his nerves screamed at once, his body paralyzed.

His head sank back onto the pillow. He swallowed the blood in his mouth. "Will I die."

"Eventually," she said, toying with the rusty coil impaled in his abdomen. "But not today. Got some crazy guardian angel protecting you or something, because your suicide stunt should have removed a lot more you than a few fingers."

"How many fingers."

White had washed over his face, yet the boy still insisted on a tough facade. So she entertained him. "Four." She dangled a plastic bag in his face, then laughed at his reaction. She dropped the fingers back in the ice bucket. "Relax, they're even not the important ones!"

"This though," she said, stroking the coil. "Hm, sorry, but you're going to be shitting iron for the next decade."

Without warning, she yanked the coil out of his body. Sasuke's back arched. A choked noise escaped his throat.

The coil hit into the floor with a klang, blood splattered against the floor tiles.

To steady his convulsions, her fingers raked through his hair, pinning his head back.

"I said, _relax_." Her words had a hypnotic effect. His back lowered onto the sheets, muscles untensed.

The wound on his stomach had already mended itself. Hazily, Sasuke glanced down to see white snakes wrapped around his arms, fangs sunk into the veins of his wrist.

"Listen, the docs will have their turn to do their thing. Heal you properly and shit. But right now, you and I, we've got business." She cut straight to the point. "You fought a man with snake voodoo like me?"

"Wh-"

"He was Orochimaru."

His brain was wired to be quick. Anko appreciated that. "The san-"

"The sannin, yes. Evil. Slightly cuckoo. And after your virgin ass."

"I-"

"You fit his M.O. to a tee. Pretty, young orphan boy. Talented. Rare. Emotionally susceptible. The only reason he hasn't gotten you yet is because another prey diverted his attention."

"... the Hyūga girl."

"Want to hazard a guess why?"

It was obvious why. The Byakugan. Without the Byakugan, their group would have lost that day. Her presence had been crucial.

"Yeah, did I also mention he has a fetish for kekkei genkai."

Sasuke kept silent. He did not have the Sharingan yet, but they both knew it was only a matter of time. He had been the son of the clan head of the Uchiha. There was no blood purer.

"So I'm the next target."

A new snake slithered out from her sleeve, thicker than the others. "Yes and no. Orochimaru wants to see your Sharingan first. Make sure you're worth his trouble." The snake wrapped itself across Sasuke's torso. Anko smiled. "And this is where I come in, to make sure that you're _not_."

The implications of her words sunk in. He struggled against his restraints. "_No_."

"No?"

"No." His voice was absolute. There was no chance he was letting Anko tamper with his eyes. Orochimaru or not, he was not going to deny his own heritage.

Oh boy. She got herself a stubborn one. If Sasuke refused, then guess she had no choice but to respect his wishes and-

Sasuke's pupils contracted. She chuckled as she removed her fangs from his neck, a finger to wipe the venom from her lips.

The juinjutsu had already taken hold, inscriptions coursing up to his face and wrapping around his eyes.

In response to his screams, she patted his head. "Don't worry, first time's always uncomfortable, but soon it'll start feeling good."

.

A second scream filled the arena. More blood dripped onto the floor.

Kiba pounded on the glass. "Hinata!" His hand slid down. "Why doesn't she quit?"

Shino watched the buckle of her knees, the terror reflected in her eyes. It was not that she did not want to. She can't. Someone was controlling her, making her dance like a marionette.

Only, it was not to make her lose. It was to make her _win_.

The seal at her neck burst to life, blossoming along her chakra pathways, darkening the outside edges of her sclera. Her cries were cut off, replaced by a solemn silence.

Her head rose.

Kabuto found himself slammed into the opposite wall, lungs suffering from collapse. While he knelt, wheezing, Hinata came forth, more chakra surging to her palm.

Her will was weak. It offered no resistance to Orochimaru's influence. Her body, though, was strong. Kabuto forced himself to move, rolling away as the wall behind him cratered. Along his arms and legs were darkened spots, where his tenketsu had been damaged.

His eyes narrowed at the pane of glass. A test of faith, is it?

"Holy fuck!" Naruto dropped his jaw at the eruption of floor tiles, the chakra in the air bursting. "Four-eyes is done for."

Kabuto spat out the blood from his mouth. Orochimaru was not leaving him a choice; he would die at this rate.

Hiruzen eyed the soldier pill, then the glow of a chakra scalpel. "A genin with that level of medical jutsu?" He glanced over to Ibiki. "Who is he?"

Ibiki flipped through his clipboard. "Does the Battle of Bellflower Pass ring any bell?"

Hiruzen hid his surprise. Interesting, this was one of Nonō's.

In the arena, Kabuto breathed heavily as he steadied his foot, glasses sliding down his nose. Both of Hinata's arms fell limp at her side, tendons sliced. She charged. Swivel, grab, cut, fall, jab, hold, spin, _push_.

Both bodies flew to opposite sides of the arena.

End.

Well done, doll, well done. Orochimaru lifted his finger, and the curse mark retreated. Kiba banged on the glass, as Hayate announced another double knock-out.

.

Baki paled at spread of calcification across Kankurō's chest. The medic presented him the wooden puppet, approximately fifteen centimeters with eight appendages.

"The stab wound from this was not fatal." The medic showed him the blade. "But this poison..."

Inside the belly of the puppet was a liquid with three agents. The first was caused immediate paralysis. That, Konoha had the antidote. The second, an analgesic. This too, they could counter. It was the third that they had no cure for, a toxin unknown to Konoha.

"Perhaps a shinobi of Sunagakure would be more educated on this."

As they spoke, more human tissue hardened, the ashen discolor creeping up centimeter by centimeter.

.

Another fragment of metal fell onto the platter, before the surgeon switched to a scissor.

Gai froze at body on the table, covered by a sheet soaked in red. An arm dangled off its edge, bent at an unnatural angle.

"Neji!"

"Please, we require you to wait outside the ER."

"Neji! Will he be alright? Will he live?" Gai demanded.

"Please, wait outside," the medic repeated, cold.

.

Anko paused, before scooping up the next bite of her pudding.

"Too late, Orochimaru," she told the figure by the door. "He already knows all about your wrinkly ass."

.

In the hallway, Asuma lit another cigarette. He watched two more bodies get rushed to the ER in stretchers.

"These kids are really at it," he mumbled, then sighed at Gai's despondent expression.

"Asuma-san."

"Hm?" Asuma turned to see the medic opening the door to him. Inside, Shikamaru sat upright, forehead bandaged.

"Your student will be fine. The attack against him was specifically a non-damaging move. He suffers nothing more than a minor concussion."

Asuma had to check his hearing. Pacifistic martial arts? That type of fighting ethics was horrendously outdated, as were the teachers who taught them.

And yet, he found himself rubbing his neck, facing Gai with unspoken gratitude. Gai kept his head lowered, tears streaming as he gave a thumbs up.

While Gai waited outside the ER for Neji, Asuma descended down the stairs for the underground arena.

His hand had yet to touch the doorknob when he heard a blood-curdling scream.

"SAKURA-CHAN!"

Sakura screamed again, hysterical. Hair had fallen wild over her face, eyes never leaving the glass as she fought to reach it. It took the combined efforts of Naruto and Lee to restrain her thrashing and pull her outside.

Asuma froze at the sight of the arena, a boy standing before a twist of sand, fabric, and limbs. Pieces of white and pink bubbled in red-black puddles of blood, the semblance of human fingers reaching in the direction of the glass.

It took all of Asuma's willpower to look at the names on the screen. His cigarette fell.

_Gaara vs. Yamanaka Ino_.


	6. A World Unbalanced

Anko leaned back in her chair. "You should be flattered, Orochimaru," she said, licking her spoon. "I just _can't_ stop using those forbidden techniques of yours."

Orochimaru smiled through the skin of his disguise. "My dear Anko, isn't playing bodyguard a bit much? Even if I wanted Sasuke-kun to come with me, I would let him do it of his own will."

"What, after you brainwash him?"

"Can one brainwash with the truth? I just want to tell him the truth."

Orochimaru paced by the bed, his fingers tracing along the edge. He gave the unconscious boy an indulgent look. "I think he would be interested to know. Like that one story, of how you know his b-"

He caught her spoon mid-air. "I hit a nerve."

"Yeah, the one that controls my tolerance for bullshit." Anko flipped a dagger between her fingers, the amusement in her eyes gone grim. "Get this clear, Orochimaru. I _never _intended any of that shit to happen."

"Of course, I would not dare imply. My Anko is only of good intentions." His smile deepened. "So many good intentions, yet so many dead."

Chuckling, he distanced away before Anko got hasty with her dagger. The ANBU were closing in. The Hokage had been alerted. He knew when he had overstayed his welcome.

But first, a gift. He placed on the windowsill a bottle, amber glass and wax-sealed. Whether or not it would be used, however, was Anko's choice.

"We all know about the road paved with good intentions." He paused by the doorway. "Aren't you ever curious where the road paved with bad intentions may lead…?"

.

On the bed lied a blackened corpse, shriveled to stone. A white cloth covered the face.

"I'm sorry."

Baki was still numb when he returned underground. But he only escaped one hell and entered another, as Gaara stood center stage in the monitoring room, the remaining contestants scattered to the periphery. A smile contorted his features, his shoulders still shaking in laughter. The smell of iron was sharp.

By the time Baki caught sight of Temari, she had already caught sight of his own expression. It told her everything she needed to know. She pushed open the door to the arena and left without another word.

_Temari vs. Inuzuka Kiba._

Temari did not play games. Her opponent was fast, charging with animalistic speed. His four-legs technique glued him to the ground, his posture balanced. She would not waste her chakra on a fūton.

Akamaru's fur rose, as a new presence entered the arena, too fast for the senses to detect. Wind cut behind him, a flash of metal and animalistic fangs.

"Akamaru!"

Akamaru uncoiled to see Kiba's arms wrapped around him. Kiba smiled. "Thank gods you're okay."

Akamaru barked in affirmation, then waited for his next commands. Only, Kiba did not move. Akamaru could smell the wound on Kiba, but nudged his nose to encourage him to keep fighting anyway. That was what ninken were taught. To keep fighting.

Kiba still did not move.

Temari's weasel summon returned to her side, its sickle dripping with color. After she was declared the winner, she released Kamatari and left the room.

When the door opened again, it was not the medics but the cleaning crew, dressed in their protective suits and gas masks, wheeling in a plastic-lined barrel.

They found a dog next to one-half of a hooded kid. The other half, they grabbed by the feet and tossed into the barrel. It squished the contents already inside, the purple fabric and blonde hairs and and pink-white cartilage, bubbling into one soup.

None of the workers paid any attention to the dog.

Shino averted his eyes from the glass. Most of the other contestants did too.

In the hallways, Naruto and Lee listened to a faint sound echo off the walls. It was howling, each cry louder than the last. Naruto recognized the sound as Akamaru's, though he had never heard Kiba's dog make such a noise.

Karin snapped shut her eyes, covering both ears in hopes of blocking out the noise.

On the opposite side of the village, Hana finished the final layer of bandage on a youngling ninken. "Ah, there you go."

She was stowing away her medical kit when the ninken began to howl.

"Hm? What's wrong?" She knelt by the puppy, a bowl of water in hand, but the puppy only continued to howl in the direction of the window. She stepped outside and froze. Lined in the courtyard, all the dogs gave the same mournful howl.

The bowl in her hands dropped.

.

"I am sorry, Hiashi-sama will not be available today."

"Did you tell him that the Hokage sent me," Kurenai said.

The Hyūga guard pursed his lips, before disappearing beyond the gate once more.

Kurenai fought back a sigh, turning toward the evening sky. The preliminaries must be coming to a close by now. She thought of her students, and could not help but feel a knot of unease.

On the screen, the same four names spun.

The first name locked. After the second name locked, Tenten stepped into the hallways.

Sakura was still huddled against the wall, head cradled in her arms. At least her screams were brought under control, quiet except for the occasional sharp inhale. Her public display earlier had cost her though. The superiors had no tolerance for a kunoichi who cannot control her own emotions. Other contestants would also take advantage of this weakness.

Tenten did not want to get involved, but at the same time, could not help but feel bad.

"Tenten?" Lee asked when Tenten offered a bamboo cup of water.

Sakura did not take it. She did not even look at it. Fear and paranoia had taken over, and so Tenten handed the cup over to Lee in hopes he had a better end of her trust.

"The final two matches have been determined." Tenten glanced at Naruto. "You should go take a look at the screen."

_Aburame Shino vs. Karin._

.

In the arena, Karin bit her knuckles, trying to ignore the insects crawling down her collar, up her legs, buzzing in her ear. She refused to scream.

Shino kept his hands pocketed, as her entire body was coated in black.

"You cannot run. Two more minutes, and you'll die of chakra deficiency." His peered at her through his shades. "It is recommended you forfeit."

Karin only bit herself harder, free hand blindly searching her bag. She found it.

Taking one deep breath, she threw her kemuridama.

Hayate stepped back from the smoke bomb, before his eyes widened and he flickered out the arena. He landed in the monitoring room, coughing until he dropped to his knees.

Ibiki lowered his clipboard. "What's going on, Hayate-san?"

Hayate only coughed some more, blood leaking through the cracks of his fingers, then collapsed.

Ibiki reacted first. "Cut off all ventilation to the arena!" he barked. "That gas is toxic!"

While the instructors set up a barrier around the arena, Ibiki called for a medic on his mic. The medic paused in the middle of her test for vitals. "He's dead."

"What!"

Before the medic could explain, her eyes rolled up and she collapsed on top of Hayate's body. Panic was ready to grip the room until Hiruzen completed his seals, and both corpses were encapsulated by an earthen coffin.

"I recognize this now." Hiruzen lowered his hands. "Though, I'd never thought I'd see the Perfume of Death make an appearance in a chūnin exam."

"Perfume of Death?" Ibiki asked.

"Many shinobi nations had searched for it during the War. It is rumored that a smell of its scent brings instant death. This kunoichi must have mixed the perfume in with her kemuridama."

"Oi, in that case, shouldn't we pull them out of there?!"

All eyes landed on Naruto. He looked at each in return, to encourage some type of consensus within the room.

Only, there already was a consensus. The adults pretended to be deaf to his outburst. Only Ibiki bothered to deign him with a response. "Poison is as viable as a battle strategy as any other. The rules remain. The match will continue until one party forfeits, is rendered incapable, or is dead."

When Hiruzen made no objections, Naruto stared through the glass. The two contestants stood unmoving amidst a black haze, deadlocked. Both had understood the gravity of the situation, neither side daring to risk their breath.

"Forfeit? They can't talk- they can't _breathe_! How can they forfeit!" Naruto gestured toward the glass. "Don't you see this match is over? Why is it necessary to drag it out any longer? Just make it a tie, already!"

It was no use. He was alone in his opinion. And anyone who could have agreed with him, would have agreed with him, was already gone. Sasuke was gone. Team 8 was gone. Team 10 was gone. Their teachers were gone. His teacher was gone. One by one, they were all gone.

Naruto never realized how empty the room had become until now.

The seconds stretched on.

Naruto wordlessly watched the two contestants stand, until one fell.

The medical crew entered in masks. One turned over the Shino's corpse, blanketed by a field of dead insects. Another ran toward the upright figure, only to find her head dropped low.

Upon closer inspection, the medic found a handkerchief fastened tightly around her nose and mouth, hands and body bound by wire, dangled off from the ceiling. Her pose was just an illusion. The girl had lost consciousness long ago.

Ibiki advanced her on a technicality. If only to avoid a tie. The tie Naruto shouted at him to declare moments prior.

In the end, it was Naruto's turn to stand in the arena.

He stared at the ruined stonework, fingerpainted red by all those who came before him. There was a smell in the air, but it was not perfume. Just terror. Just pain. Just tears.

Naruto wondered if he was imagining it, when he heard them, these contestants. From today, from the years before, the screams of the thousands of children who had perished within this forest, inside the walls of this tower, on this arena. Their cries were deafening his ear, their cold hands passing through his back. He had to be imagining it.

But then, he looked at Sakura.

And that was when he knew that he was not imagining it. This was their fate, and it was all very, very real.

_Uzumaki Naruto vs. Haruno Sakura._

.

Orochimaru was walking past one pillar after another, transitioning from light to shadow to light, when his movements slowed, then stopped. Beyond the curved roof of the temple, the sky had changed, sun angled. Leaves were swirling, his hair alive in the air.

A new wind, he realized, different from the ones decades prior. A wind that was gaining momentum, fast and strong.

The birds lifted for the skies.

No, not just a wind. Orochimaru smiled as he joined Kabuto in the shadow. A storm was brewing.

.

Sasuke curled each of his fingers, all ten, reattached with no stitch or scar in sight.

An amber bottle lied open on the medicine cart, contents empty.

The medic set down his clipboard down, pleased by the results. "You were fortunate that your sensei had left you this. The venom of a King White Snake is one of the rarest, most potent panacea known to mankind. You should be free to go tomorrow."

The lights to the ER had dimmed, as Gai stood outside weeping. The medic clutched his shoulder.

"Normally an explosion from that distance would have been unsurvivable, but your student is remarkably talented. It appears he released chakra from his tenketsu, creating a body shield that redirected all the debris to non-fatal areas. We've even managed to save his eye. Neji-kun is on his way to a full recovery."

"Thank you," Gai sobbed. "Thank you, thank you."

Neji glanced over the side of his pillow. Beyond the curtain, a medic was with the head of the Hyūga. Hiashi left halfway through the diagnosis without a word. He never stopped by Neji's bed, never even acknowledged he was there.

And oddly enough, Neji did not care. He closed his eyes, without anger, without bitterness, just a tension in his chest that eased the moment he heard the medic say Hinata would be okay.

The travel from Konohagakure to Sunagakure would take several days. On their journey, Baki carried Kankurō's body, wrapped in the same way Kankurō used to carry his own puppets. At Baki's waist was a scroll. The day prior, Tenten had returned both puppets to them in a surprising display of diplomacy.

The medics had also offered to return Kankurō's own creation, though Temari refused to spare it a glance. Baki was not surprised. Temari did not cling to the past.

Baki was surprised, however, when Gaara did accept it. Someone about Gaara's expression had been off when the spidery puppet landed in his hands, something about the way he looked at it that was different from his normal mask of indifference. It was not glee. Nor was it sadness.

Sakura was the first person to leave the funeral. It was a private event for the Yamanaka family, and she had overstayed her welcome. As she closed the door to her apartment, she caught sight of the spathiphyllum peeking from Naruto's side of the kitchen. Her fingers trailed down the white petals a lily, only to start shaking again.

Naruto lugged home the groceries. They had a month until the final tournament. Until then, Anko called off all missions. Instead, they were to use this time to get some rest and eat proper food. Neither he nor Sakura had cooked since their Academy days though, so Naruto spent most of the time cleaning pots and rummaging for utensils.

"Sakura-chan." He knocked on her bedroom door. "I made us miso soup. Thick-brow also brought you some curry, if you want it."

No response.

He gave a defeated sigh, setting the tray down by her door. Beside the tray, he placed down a plastic bag with a container of warm curry.

By the next morning, the food was still untouched. Wordlessly, Naruto switched the tray with a new one, then again for lunch and dinner.

"Sakura-chan, you have to eat!" Naruto pounded on her door. It was the third night now, and her door was still locked shut, windows closed, curtains drawn. Frustrated, Naruto grabbed the handle, only to get an explosion in his face. The paper tag vanished behind the wood once more.

Fucking jutsu. Naruto wiped the soot from his face and stomped off.

"Sakura-chan, your lousy husband is here. If you come out, he'll take you out on a date," Naruto coaxed.

Nothing.

"Sasuke says it'll be his treat, because he's fucking rich like that," Naruto added, desperate.

Nothing.

Sasuke did not have the patience for this.

"Sasuke, maybe you could talk to her and-"

The door toppled down. Sasuke lowered his foot and walked past the splinters.

Naruto closed his mouth. Or you could do that.

Inside, his foot landed on a book. Naruto bent down to pick it up, only to see a thousand others scattered across the room, pages ripped apart, formulas torn down the middle, names and dates thrown into the air. An entire bookshelf had been pried off the wall, smashed into the equally broken desk and bed.

Sakura sat in the middle of the wreckage, unmoving, eyes blank. She did not react when Sasuke stepped past her, throwing open the curtains. The morning light did not do any mercy for the room, nor her face. Her skin had gone chalk white, eyelids swelled and lips cracked. Dust mixed in grease had faded the color of her hair, dry and tangled.

She reminded Naruto of a plant left unwatered, petals fallen and leaves withered.

"Naruto says you're not eating. If you wanted to die, you could have just asked Naruto to kill you in preliminaries. At least then we wouldn't have wasted a tournament spot."

Sasuke grabbed Sakura by the chin, forcing her to face him. "Over a dozen people died trying to get what you have," he reminded. "Your Yamanaka friend included."

Slowly, her gaze rose, until her eyes locked onto his. "Sasuke-kun…"

Sasuke's head snapped to the side. Naruto winced at the raw bruise, while Sakura lowered her palm.

"Next time you try to comfort someone in grief," she whispered, "please don't."

Sasuke set his jaw straight. Well, he had done his job.

As he made his way out, Naruto mouthed a thank you. Definitely took one for the team there. Sasuke returned a glare.

"And you owe me a new door!" Sakura shouted. Her front door slammed close.

Afterward, she turned her focus on the remaining intruder in her domain, her eyes still bloodshot and savage. Naruto's fight or flight response kicked in, and he was ready to kawarimi out of there, when her shoulders sagged.

"You refrigerated that curry, right?"

They sat across from one another in Naruto's side of the kitchen. The rice was cold and stale, but Sakura made no effort to steam it, just poured copious amount of reheated curry on top.

One bite in, her head hung low.

"It's spicy, isn't it."

She forced herself to swallow, "Yes," and dug her chopsticks into the bowl.

Naruto watched her bring another bite to her mouth. "You hate spicy."

"Yes."

"You must really like thick-brow."

The accusatory tone was enough to make her pause mid-bite. "I'll eat the miso too," she sighed.

Before she could blink, a bowl of steaming miso appeared on the table, with a spinning spoon added on as afterthought. Naruto returned his hands to his lap, pleased.

The morning was overbearingly normal. Light from the blinds striped the table, contouring the empty dishes in the middle. Nested in Sakura's fingers was a mug of tea that did little to remove the fatigue from her eyes.

"Why did you forfeit, Naruto."

"Because you were going to."

"You stood a better chance." It was the truth. "I can't fight like you can."

"But you're smart."

Sakura scoffed. "Pretty sure Shikamaru's IQ is three standard deviations above mine, and look how that ended."

"You're a different type of smart than him."

"Yeah, the dumb type of smart." The inefficient, pedestrian type of smart. The type of smart that is useless in the heat of combat, because there is one second between life and death, half a second, and in that half a second, what does it matter how many books you have read. What good is it to _know _if you cannot _act_.

She wanted to pry another bookshelf off the wall. Just let it fall.

"It's not dumb! It's just..." Naruto did not know to explain it. "It's just slow. It's patient. But when you get stuck on a problem, like really stuck, and you can't outpower it, or outspeed it, or outwit it, this is the only thing that will work. The only thing that keeps going and going until you finally get an… an _answer_."

Sakura lowered her mug, watching a flustered Naruto shuffle through his hair. For once, they were out of sync, and she failed to understand what he was getting at.

Naruto slumped, defeated. "Sakura-chan, this exam, didn't you feel like it's rigged?" he whispered. "Like, whether you win or not, you will always be _wrong_?"

And not just any type of wrong. A terrifying type of wrong. A lightless type of wrong. A _screaming_ type of wrong. Naruto thought back to that arena, and a prickling chill coursed down his spine.

"Sasuke and I, maybe we can fight better. And if we kept trying, maybe we can win. But... I don't know if we can ever make it _right_."

Sakura opened her mouth, ready to say something when he pierced her with those blue eyes of his. "I think only you can do that."

.

Nightfall. Sakura lied on wrinkled folds of her comforter, thrown overboard to cushion the hard surface of the floor. Outside her private circle was a labyrinth of words, words, paper, and words.

_When you get stuck on a problem, like really stuck, and you can't outpower, or outspeed it, or outwit it, this is the only thing that will work._

_The only thing that keeps going and going until you finally get an…_

She stared at the ink bled onto her fingers.

_...an answer._

"Sakura?"

Sakura jerked her head in the direction of the bed, to find a silhouette peering down the mattress.

Still half-muddled in sleep, Ino pulled the chain to her lamp. Her blonde hair barely grazed past her shoulders when she leaned forth, her button nightgown crooked on her frame.

"You were mumbling. Did you have another nightmare...?"

Once Sakura overcame her paralysis, she reached out a shaking hand, her own fingers smaller than she remembered. Their palms met.

It… worked.

Ino eyed her weirdly. "What…?" What worked? Her voice was tired. "Sakura, here, just get in and come sleep-" Ino had yet to lift her covers when she was pulled into an embrace.

It worked. It worked. She was back. Thank you, Ino, thank you for being there, thank you for always being there. Yes, she did have a nightmare, but the nightmare was over now and-

Sakura spilled everything. The important things first, about the exam two years from now, how they would both take the exam, and it would be a mistake, a grave mistake, and Ino should run if she ever met a Suna nin named Gaara. She described him, every detail her memory allowed, then the other contestants too. She retold earlier events, major events, then ones closer to their current timeline, things that would happen in school, things that no prank could pull off, so Ino could affirm the validity of her statements when they came true. She showed Ino the jutsu written on her arm. It took months to develop, but the jutsu finally worked and allowed her to come back and-

Ino still eyed her weirdly.

"Sakura, if what you're saying is true, why didn't you go back to your tenth birthday?"

Sakura froze, as the silhouettes of her mother and father appeared behind Ino's shoulder.

Her eyes fell back on her arm. The ink was still fresh, tattooing a single sentence into her skin.

_What is written cannot be unwritten._

The pen in her hand shook, then fell. Her parents had disappeared with the blow of a candle, leaving only Ino behind, hand extended. Her hair had grown long once more, her nightgown replaced by kunoichi garbs.

"You're having another nightmare," Ino whispered, her bones already bending, fingers contorting like branches, too thin and tangled for Sakura to grab.

No, don't go, don't go, please-

It was too late. The bed crumbled, and they both drowned in a pit of sand. Sakura found herself blinded, crushed, her fingers grasping air until they finally came into contact with something solid.

Sasuke pulled her out of the barrel. While she wheezed, he merely glanced down at the bubbling human mass below them, the shinobi headbands and tangled hairs.

"Instead of daydreaming, shouldn't you be preparing for the tournament?" He walked away without looking back. "Make use of their sacrifice, Sakura. Avenge them."

The ground beneath them had cracked, separating them into two separate planes of existence.

His tone had dipped into one of amusement. "Or do you want to join them that badly?"

The crack widened, angry and red. From below, shrieks and hisses, the putrid smell of sulfur. Panicked, Sakura scrambled back, evading their grabs at her ankle, their attempts to pull her down with them, before finally climbing on top her seat, legs pulled tightly against her chest.

A pencil drummed on the desk beside hers.

"Mah, Sakura-chan, where are my answers…" Naruto pouted, holding up their homework. It was blank. "Aren't you always supposed to have the answers?"

Sakura snapped, tearing the paper from his hands. Shut up, Naruto, no, no she doesn't! Her face crumbled, and her eyes became wet. Some things just have no answer, okay? She thought she had an answer, but that answer doesn't exist, and she can't fix this, she doesn't know how to fix this, so, please, just shut up...

"What are you doing, Sakura?" Both of them turned around to see Iruka before them, arms folded. "Class, what is rule twenty-five?"

The class answered in a chorus, gleeful and giggling.

"Correct. A shinobi must never show tears, Sakura." Iruka hovered above her, his presence eclipsing hers. "Do you have an explanation for yourself?"

Sakura was caught. She gave up on trying to hide her shame, and worked to form a coherent apology, but her words were jumbled, and the class only giggled harder, and-

"Oh gods, you look ridiculous," Mebuki said fondly, wiping the cheeks of her daughter. "It's alright, let it all out."

She can't, she can't, the class would laugh, and Iruka-sensei said-

"Your teachers are not always right, you know," Kizashi sighed.

What would _he_ know. He was just a lowly genin, but Iruka-sensei was a chūnin. Her teachers were chūnin, and she trusted chūnin more than genin, and even if all the chūnin were wrong, there was still the jōnin, there was still the Hokage. Her father was not smarter than the Hokage.

She was eight, and even she understood that, so how could her idiot, loser genin parents think they knew better than the Hokage.

Sakura did not know who she was trying to convince. She was still crying, and her parents were hugging her, and their hug was warm, and Ino knelt by her side, smiling, cosmos in hand, and the tears refused to stop.

Her voice finally broke free.

Nightfall. In the darkness, Naruto stared at his bedroom ceiling. Their walls were too thin.

.

Sakura breathed. Mist evaporated from her skin, water dripping down her hips, down her ankles, and onto the bathroom tiles.

She was on her sixth lap when the street lamps faded, the sun finally over the horizon. She had not noticed.

"Sakura-san!"

Sakura snapped out of her daze, her footwork slowing a minuscule as Lee joined her morning jog.

She forced a pleasant smile. "Lee-san, what are you doing out this early?"

Lee laughed. "Early? It's past six!"

His breath was as labored as hers, and she caught the streaks of sweat and dirt down his temple and neck. The bandages on his hands already looked as torn as they were in the Forest of Death. Something told her this type of heavy training was routine.

"Want to race?" She needed the distraction. When there was no response, she glanced over to see him staring, speechless.

Lee shook his head. "Of course! Let's do it!"

She grinned. "Don't lose."

With that, she propelled chakra from her feet and disappeared.

Matching Lee in speed was not the difficult part. The difficult part was maintaining that speed, navigating and breaking that speed. It was a speed dangerous enough that collision with a nearby pole or water tower was fatal.

Still, Sakura was in a reckless mood. She let her chakra reserves burn, let the world blur, let the adrenaline course through her without regard.

"Why did you hold back?" Sakura uncapped her water bottle.

They sat on top of the Nidaime's head, overlooking the village below. Activity had just begun to stir, businesses opening shop.

At Lee's questioning look, Sakura clarified. "Your deceleration was off. You're carrying mass." A lot, _a lot_ of mass.

Caught, Lee slid down his leg warmers. "Apologies, Sakura-san. But I promised Gai-sensei that I'd only take them off in special circumstances."

"It's all there?" Sakura examined the stone weights strapped above his ankles, frowning. "That's going to kill your musculoskeletal development, Lee-san. Ask your sensei to distribute it more evenly around your body."

Besides that, training weights was not too bad an idea. Sakura took another swig of water, then stood up.

"Lee-san, thank you. You've been very kind to me." Things had changed. She did not know where he would be a month from now, where she would be. Might as well say these things while her words still carried meaning, while they can still be given and received. She spun around around, the morning light softening the edges of her smile.

"Let's go on a date," she said. "My treat."

A date. Looking back on it, wasn't that what she had always wanted? The only thing she wanted. Maybe she could finally experience that before she left this world.

"I would love to!" Lee held himself back. "But only after the exam. After you win!"

Sakura paused. "After I win?"

"If you win. But if _I_ win…" Lee gave his signature smile, thumb out. "If I win, then I treat you instead!"

.

Kurenai stiffly accepted her stamped paperwork, then filed out of the office. In the hallways, the higher ranks eyed her leave. She refused to make eye contact.

"Demoted?" Asuma demanded.

Kurenai swallowed down her bitterness. It was the humiliation that burned worse than anything else, to be stripped of her rank after less than a year. That was not to say she did not deserve it.

"My judgement was found questionable." That was putting their words mildly. Her superiors straight out spat in her face, calling her out on her arrogance.

"It's because of the exams."

"It's to be expected. I nominated a team that wasn't ready," Kurenai said with a weary sigh. She massaged her temples. "They weren't wrong."

"No, _you _weren't wrong. Shino was top-tier. Kiba was a damn good fighter, better than all the other rookies, and Hinata, she was Hyūga material."

"And two are dead! One has a curse mark!"

"So what! This is the _chūnin exam_. No one can predict these things. Casualties are expected. My team-" Asuma stopped himself. He did not want to go down that path. Sighing, he sat down on the stone steps and said, "Kurenai, I've known you since the Academy. You were one of the most brilliant students in that building, and the most prudent too. Maybe even too prudent, since you didn't gamble, you never jeopardized teammate's lives for the sake of boosting your own record. And that's what makes you one hell of a commander. This…" He slapped the papers. "This isn't a result of your deficiencies as a leader. This is the result of revenge. Some angry parents want someone to blame for their kid's death, and you got scapegoated."

Kurenai was not sure whether his words were meant to relieve or upset her. She leaned against the banister. "It's probably the Inuzuka," she said, staring into the distance. "They don't take well to losing one of their own."

"Or Aburame. Shino had been their sole heir."

"Nope, Hyūga."

Both Asuma and Kurenai turned to the third voice. Anko waved her skewer of dango in greeting.

"Not Hyūga," Kurenai scoffed. "Hiashi cares nothing of what happens to his eldest daughter."

"Maybe you're right. But still, it's Hyūga." Anko's teeth tore apart the glutinous rice. Licking her lips, she said, "You got scapegoated, alright. But this is where you're wrong, Asuma. It isn't revenge. It's politics."

Kurenai narrowed her eyes. "Politics?"

Anko grinned. "What happened today was a power-play."

The village was a system of checks and balances. In the early days, it was the Senju, checked by the Uchiha, balanced by the Uzumaki. But then the Uzumaki disappeared. The Senju lost power. As such, the Uchiha dominated, until they were finally checked by the Hyūga, balanced by the Senju.

But now, the Uchiha were gone as well. The legacy of Senju was an aging old man appointed to power over forty years ago. Which just left...

"The Hyūga wants collateral for the damage against their heir. Orochimaru has always been a weakness within the Sandaime's reign, and now they have glaring evidence for it, to use against him. With this curse mark incident, the clan has finally found leverage they need to demand transition into the main body of government."

Where there is unbalance, there will be change. Anko threw her skewer. "You were burned, Kurenai, you were burned hard. But your superiors, don't blame them too much. They were only trying to save their own ass."

.

Fours weeks. How much could a person improve within four weeks.

Well, Anko had no clue. Depends on the person.

"I'm assuming there's a reason y'all staring at me," she finally said.

"Yes, you're our sensei."

"And…?"

"_And_ aren't you supposed to be, like, I don't know, teaching us shit?" Naruto blurted out, arms wide.

"Do I look teacher material to you?" Anko snorted. Nonetheless, she jumped from her post and onto the grass below. "But okay, I'll bite." With missions canceled and her proctor duties on hold, she could afford to play a little make-believe. "What do you want me to teach?"

Sasuke scowled. Their supposed teacher did not even know what the fuck to teach them?

"Uh, well, what have you got?" Naruto asked.

Anko beamed. Oh, plenty! There was the Assassination Strike, Hidden Snake Hand, Death Bind, Salamander Blaze, Demonic Illusion: Fang Paralysis… she completed her list by the sixth run of her fingers. Not as impressive as Kakashi's list, but eh, he had several years on her.

"Great, so teach us… those." Naruto gestured.

Yeah, about that... Did she mention they were all banned?

Team 7 collapsed.

"Teach Sasuke-kun long range."

All eyes fell on Sakura.

"You saw his match. He has the precision for it, just not enough force. So teach Sasuke-kun a stronger long range attack."

She glanced over to Naruto. "And him, teach Naruto how to control the kyūbi. We're already at the limit of his control, so it's just about increasing the quantity of chakra at this point."

Now they were getting somewhere.

"And you?" Anko asked.

Sakura shrugged. It was a Saturday. Saturday mornings were Sailor Stars mornings. "I think I'll watch some T.V."

.

Row after row of metal glistened in the warehouse. Trademark swords of different sizes and grip propped against the racks. A myriad of sickles and whips hung from the stone walls. Barrels of ore, oil, and explosion powder created a sharp, industrial smell.

Anko leaned against the counter. "We're looking for something long range."

"Long range, you say?"

The head blacksmith pulled Sasuke down by the chin. "Yes, good eyes," he noted, then scrutinized Sasuke's hand and fingers. "Nimble, fast..." He circled around the boy. "Concentrated..."

The blacksmith reached for the yari behind him, until he caught a scowl and laughed in delight. "Ooh, and picky! Very picky. I see how it is." His hand lowered to the table instead and presented Sasuke the fine tip of an arrow.

"For a man who knows his exact target."

.

"Gah!" Naruto jumped. An arrow vibrated where he previously sat. He flipped his meditation sign into the middle finger. "Oi, watch it!"

Across the field, Sasuke strung back his bow a second time. Three arrows. Naruto kicked up his feet. One pierced through the hem of his jacket. A snake awaited him below, ready to bite.

"I've always wanted to go kyūbi hunting," Anko chuckled. "Let's pull this bad boy out."

After compromising the snake, Naruto straightened up. "Okay, you wanna go, let's _go_, dattebayo!"

In an instant, two hundred kage bunshin littered the field.

Unfazed, Sasuke leveled his aim.

.

Sakura bit into her pen cap, eyes never leaving the television screen. Beside her was a stack of surveillance tapes from the exam.

How do you defeat your opponent? Her eyes traced every movement, every gesture of the battle. How did _they_ beat their opponents?

The past could not be unwritten. It could not be erased, it could not be revised. But it could teach, if you were willing to learn.

.

"Hi, I'd like to buy twelve of these, and three of that, and one of this."

The shopkeeper followed her pointer finger to each of the items she addressed.

Sakura paused. "Do you sell wagons?"

_Uchiha Sasuke vs. Hyūga Neji. An offense can be your greatest defense. And your defense, your greatest offense._

Sasuke unloaded his next set of quivers. On the verge of collapse, Naruto cursed his lungs off before dodging the next wave of attacks.

Sakura walked laps around the field, oblivious to their mishaps. She flipped through the pages of the book in her hands, tilting her head at the diagrams.

After checking out more materials from the library, she grabbed a quick lunch with the team, clipped another weight to her belt, and read-walked some more.

_Shikamaru Nara vs. Rock Lee. Speed above all. Strategy is meaningless if you cannot move fast enough to execute it._

"Lee isn't here."

"I'm not looking for Lee-san. I wanted to ask you something."

Tenten threw the towel over her shoulder, listening.

"You're a master in seals, right?" Sakura showed her the notebook in her hands. "Is this theoretically feasible?"

_Kankurō vs. Tenten. Anything qualifies as a weapon. Anything._

"Hi, yes, can I also get all of these things?" Sakura presented the shopkeeper a list.

_Yakushi Kabuto vs. Hyūga Hinata. It is easy to shield your outsides. It is not as easy to protect the insides._

Sakura finished the last mark of blood, before pressing both palms down on the parchment. Insignia swirled in life, then exploded. She coughed, wiping away smoke, and before unrolling clean parchment and trying again.

She was chakra drained and blood dry when the kuchiyose finally stopped blowing up in her face. She stared at her summoning and smiled.

_Temari vs. Inuzuka Kiba. Delegate the fight to the fighters._

Wrench in mouth, Sakura closed the tap to the pipe, then rolled the last container onto her wagon. There was no moon that night.

She threw a tarp over the dozen barrels of gasoline, and called it a day.

_Aburame Shino vs. Karin. Once everything is in motion, keep patience. Time will be your greatest assassin._

The following morning was bright. Kurenai glanced down at the pink-haired girl waiting on her doorstep.

Sakura was adjusting the weight at her wrist when they made eye contact. She straighten her posture, recomposing her expression into a smile. "Good morning, Kurenai-san. Anko-sensei said you're the person to turn to for genjutsu?"

_Gaara vs. Yamanaka Ino. You do not piss off Haruno Sakura._


	7. Firestorm

The world dripped. A leaf sagged heavier in rainwater, before emptying onto the crown of a ring below.

"Sasori's intel was accurate. The Kazekage had been assassinated."

It was a voice filtered through layers of static, unnatural to the ear and dead as stone.

"An invasion of Konohagakure is under way." That was the final message, before the communication line thinned, then snapped.

Kisame lifted his finger before the next droplet of rain could land, tilting his sugegasa at an angle that allowed for a glimpse of his partner.

"It's your lucky day, Itachi-san. Orochimaru against Konoha, two of your greatest nuisances now set to destroy one another." The missing-nin grinned, baring rows of inhuman teeth. "Who do you think will succeed?"

"Neither."

"Neither?"

Above, the clouds had whitened. Sunlight finally pierced through the woodlands, breaking the road before them into fragments of light and dark.

Kisame watched his partner slid his arm down his sleeve, the cloak fluttering behind as he stepped into the jigsaw.

"Neither has the competency."

.

Down the valleys and across the river, toward the center of the country, a plateau gave way to a lattice of gardens and lakes.

"What do you wish to do with the invitation, my Lord?"

The counselor kept his head bowed, the fabric of his hoeki no hô sweeping the floor.

The Fire Daimyō pinched his lips, tapping his fan in habit. "I heard the Wind Lord showed no interest? And the travel is so long. I do not know, is it worth my time, Jiraiya?"

Jiraiya gleamed over the names on the official invitation, his expression twisted into one of amusement. "Four kunoichi," he noted, handing back the letter.

A laugh. "Yes, that's four more than we usually have, isn't it." The Fire Daimyō shook his head. "Not much entertainment, these girl fights. I take it you're not going either, then."

"Well, I-"

On an outside elm, a bird perched, black feathers in sharp contrast to the nearby flora. Jiraiya lowered his tea, watching the crow watch him. "I… believe I will."

The Fire Daimyō nearly dropped his fan, headpiece toppling as Jiraiya relatched the scroll on his back. "You will!" he exclaimed. "After all this time, you will return to Konoha?"

Jiraiya was already at the chamber's exit, both arms extended. "Four kunoichi, my Lord! How could I not give these ladies my undying support."

.

"How is this possible."

The toad summoning vanished, leaving behind only a crumpled note.

"How is it possible that half the world knows an invasion on our village is coming, but the entirety of our blasted Intelligence Division doesn't!"

Inoichi closed his eyes at the spit in his face, keeping his lips pursed and sarcasm saved for another day. Instead, he opted for a closer examination of the note. "This leak. How credible is the source?"

At the head of the table was the Hokage, flanked by his two advisors, in a seat backdropped by stone pillars and gridded oak. Unlike the luxurious fusuma abundant within the tower, these walls allowed no sound to escape, neither in nor out of the chamber.

Hiruzen ignored Inoichi's silent prayer when he said, "Enough to treat as fact."

And thus, the room fell to chaos. Inoichi could feel his migraine intensify, as voices rose in increasing frenzy, until Ibiki finally brought order with a bang against the table. "Focus!"

They were warned. Now, it was their duty to figure out what their informant knows that they did not. Who. When. How.

Anko got the answer to the first question. "Orochimaru."

It was only a partial answer. "Orochimaru has the power to destroy a small village, but not us. He will need reinforcements," Hiruzen said.

Koharu realized the answer to the second question. "He plans to attack the day of the tournament." She turned to Hiruzen, tassels in sway. "Tens of thousands will be flooding our gates then to see the final exam. We are letting our enemies right in."

"Then we cancel," Homura said.

"We cannot cancel."

All eyes fell on the corner figure. Danzō pressed firmly against his cane, unmoved.

"Danzō is right," Hiruzen sighed. "All invitations have already been sent. To retract them now will only signal weakness to the world leaders." Which may very well be what Orochimaru wanted.

No one had an answer to the third question.

It was in the silence that the Chief Commander finally reopened his eyes. "Looks like we will just have to cover all our bases then," Shikaku said. "And prepare for war."

After the meeting, Hiruzen noted the lingering figure in the room. While the wrinkles on his face betrayed his exhaustion, she stood young and undaunted, burning in vigor. "Anko."

"Hokage-sama, might I make a proposition?"

.

Karin glanced out the hospital window. The village atmosphere had changed, finally broken out of its lethargy.

Beneath the calm exterior of the civilian streets, troops mobilized in a frenzy. Information must have finally hit them, the chain of command spiraling outwards from the Kage tower.

Kabuto smiled, looking up from his book just as Karin returned to hers. Too bad they were looking in all the wrong places.

.

The gates opened. Shikamaru found himself refuge far away from the commotion, where the streets were still relatively uncrowded and quiet.

"The climbing silver, eh. Clever…"

Shikamaru was used to receiving compliments, examining the shogi board with drab interest. When a rook lifted, he eyed the spot he expected it to drop.

"... though trite."

Done, his opponent slipped his hand back into his sleeve. Shikamaru studied the move, a crease forming on his inner brow. His opponent had opted out of the capture. That was different. Shikamaru seized hold of his knight.

His opponent reacted faster than he expected. Shikamaru slid his piece in diagonal. Another click. The tile flipped. His turn again.

Shikamaru frowned. On guard now, he slipped his piece back. As expected, the opposing rook repositioned. Shikamaru sweated, a grin slowly slipping on his face. This guy was good. A less competent player would have been blindsided four turns ago.

"You been playing long?" Shikamaru asked, finalizing his next play.

"Millennias." His opponent chuckled. "You?"

"A year."

"Not bad for a year. You set up well with the knight. I reckon it's your preferred piece?"

Shikamaru watched his opponent dodge his trap again. "It is," he said, letting his knight make its jump back as well. He paused, studying the board yet still finding no discernable pattern to his opponent's strategy. "Do you have a preference too?"

"I do."

Shikamaru did not expect him to reveal his hand, but he asked anyways. "And what would that be?"

"The queen."

For the first time, Shikamaru looked up. The man sat lax, the features of his face hidden by the shadow of his sugegasa.

"There is no queen in shogi," Shikamaru tested.

"No, not anymore."

Shikamaru expected an elaboration but received none. "The queen," he repeated, before returning to layout of the board. "How does she move?"

"Like the bishop..." His opponent rose, but not before he placed down his last tile. "...combined with the rook."

Shikamaru stared at the board. In his mind, time fast forwarded, turn by turn, piece by piece, capture by capture. Pawn to E3, checkmate. Shikamaru rewinded and replayed. Lance to H4, checkmate. He changed his path again. General to G6, checkmate. His thumbs pressed against one another, millions of combinations flashing by, before he reopened his eyes.

He… lost.

"Shikamaru!" By his side stood Chōji, who eyed him with concern. "What are you doing here? The finals will be starting soon."

Shikamaru stared at the empty bench opposite of him. "I…"

"Aren't we going?" Chōji asked.

.

Thousands of spectators gathered on the stadium balconies, contaminated by fervor and fear.

Temari watched the Kazekage join the Hokage in the upper platform, before turning to their final exam proctor.

Genma bit into his senbon, doing a head count of the contestants lined up before him. "We're missing one."

"Nope, right here, sorry!"

Everyone turned to the source of squeaking, as a breathless Sakura tugged an overloaded wagon centerstage. Genma raised an eyebrow at the barrels stacked in a mountain, then the heavy duty bag strapped around her back.

She gave one last inhale, before straightening up. "I'm not disqualified, right?"

"You're just in time," Genma reassured.

At this, Sakura breathed in relief, just as the Hokage made his announcement to the audience. Amidst the cheers, Genma briefed the rules to the contestants one last time, before showing the line up chart.

"Up first is Haruno Sakura and Gaara, so everyone else exit to the waiting balcony, got it?"

Sakura exchanged a thumbs up with Lee as he filed away, then faced her opponent. She smiled, the handle of her wagon dropped from her grip.

From the spectator's balcony, Hiashi glanced aside to his daughter. "This is your second time studying these matches. I want your assessment."

Hanabi said nothing, the veins around her eyes deepening. She observed the pathways of chakra, the flows of energy within both contestants.

"The first contestant has eight times the chakra of an average nin," she noted, then paused. The second contestant had one-fourth. This match was a complete joke.

Chōji waved to Asuma, Shikamaru following behind, before they occupied the two of the three empty seats to his left. On Asuma's right sat Kurenai and Gai, both analyzing the odds.

Shikamaru paused at the arena. "What is Sakura doing there? She doesn't stand a chance against that guy, not if Ino-!" He stopped himself after seeing the change in Asuma's expression. Chōji cringed, hands frozen around his bag of potato chips, not daring to tear it open.

Asuma recomposed himself, removing his cigarette. "From the looks of things, Sakura came prepared. I am sure she will be fine. Kurenai-sensei here has even given the girl extensive training, isn't that right?"

That was not incorrect. Sakura had wanted theoretical help in a specific genjutsu technique, and Kurenai complied. How any of their lessons could be applied to an one-on-one match remained to be seen.

Kurenai bit her lips. If a genin was deemed too weak to continue, it was the responsibility of the teacher to pressure a forfeit. Anko did not. Then again, Anko was not averse to risk, and her do-or-die philosophy had a tendency to get people killed.

From the arena pit, Sakura took in the rows of spectators, the noblemen and lords from across the world. The shouts and cheers echoed in her ears, promises of wealth and glory, and she thought to herself what a dream this should be, to stand where her parents could not in a lifetime.

"... words you'd like to say before we start?"

Genma broke her out of her thoughts. Sakura eyed her opponent, who stood silent and expressionless as stone, then raised her hand. "Yeah, I do."

After a moment of silence, she bowed, hands clapped together in a beg. "I'm just a weak, pathetic girl who got here because of my teammates, they're the ones who do the fighting, not me, oh my god, why the hell am I even here, please go easy on me!"

Genma opened his mouth. Okay then. He shot Gaara a quick look to see he had nothing to contribute, so with that, he leapt back and commenced the match.

The cork popped out, a wave of sand flowing into the air. It shot forth.

Sakura held her breath, then dropped low, the straps of her backpack slipping off her shoulders, spun, and kicked the backpack east towards an awaiting figure. Gaara caught the second Sakura in his periphery, redirecting his sand, only to see the backpack phase through her body.

It was nothing more than an E-rank bunshin. He returned his focus to the first Sakura to find her gone. A diversion tactic.

"She's running away," Kurenai mumbled, watching a wave of sand follow the girl across the arena. The sand had just caught up to her ankle when-

"That speed," Gai said, intrigued.

In a blitz, Sakura disappeared.

Lee gripped the railings, as Sakura weaved through the crashes of sand with ease. "What beautiful movement!"

Hanabi narrowed her eyes, tracing the abnormality of chakra concentrated at the base of Sakura's foot, an energy pattern reminiscent of the shunshin. Impressive level of control, even by Hyūga standards. Still, her chakra was draining fast, and at this rate, she had no more than ten seconds.

Sakura did not need more than ten seconds, as her feet finally reached the wall of the arena.

Temari grasped the situation first. "Gaara, stop!"

Sakura perched at the rim of the arena wall, hands frozen mid-sign. The sand had stopped pursuing her, retreated back to its owner.

Hands shaking, Temari let out a breath, then focused on the wagon. Explosives. Those had to be explosives, and not even Gaara's sand armor would have protected him from a blast of that magnitude. Worse, the Konoha kunoichi was intentionally luring sand away to weaken his shield, meaning she had knowledge of the mechanisms behind his defenses.

Thankfully, her brother seemed to have understood, as he kept his sand guarded around his person.

Shikamaru bit his thumb. Blowing everything up could work, but not if her opponent could barricade himself from the explosion. If this was Sakura's strategy, she lost her one chance.

"Have you made your assessment?" Hiashi asked.

The speed enhancement had depleted too much chakra. What was left was not enough for a fight.

"Yes," Hanabi said. "The victor will be-"

Sakura grinned, palms sliced, blood dripping off her fingers. The bastard made a mistake of stopping his attack. A very, very bad mistake.

While all the jōnin instructors froze, Tenten could not help but smile. "She actually pulled it off."

Genma lowered his senbon, watching twin scrolls fall, parchments fluttering in the air, insignias spiralling. He did not have to see the calligraphy on the back to know what they were.

The summonings made contact with the arena ground.

Naruto straightened from his crouch, Earth scroll in his grip, while Sasuke caught the Heaven.

"Oi, miss us?"

.

The potato chip stopped before Chōji's mouth. "Can… can you do that?" he asked Asuma, who was still recovering from shock.

The sentiment echoed across the balconies, murmurs spreading from row to row. From everyone's confusion, Karin guessed this was the first time someone performed human summonings in a match. However, there was no question of the validity of her move. A shinobi was but another weapon, no different from a puppet or pet.

Karin glanced at the Suna kunoichi by her side. Temari had turned inwards in thought, her posture gone rigid. With this one move, the tables had turned against them.

Genma stuck the senbon back in his mouth. This match just got interesting.

Disquieted, Hanabi watched as kage bunshin after kage bunshin materialized until an army stood at command.

"You were saying?" Hiashi asked.

He took in his daughter's silence as a concession. Closing his eyes, he said, "You assumed chakra determined the capabilities of a shinobi, and a measure of one was a measure of the other. Now you see the mistake of such narrow thinking."

"What did you see, otou-san?" Hanabi whispered.

"A shinobi with all talent but no preparations, and a kunoichi with no talent but every preparation." He paused. "I see a very well rehearsed play."

Below, walls of sand undulated, stopping a three-sixty barrage of fists, only for an arrow to emerge from the stomach of one clone, slipping through a gap in his shield. Gaara did not blink, the arrow caught in a second sand layer. He failed to notice the paper tag wrapped around the shaft.

Sakura plugged her ears at the blast, the air masked in powders of white, before picking up her befallen backpack. She walked on, oblivious to the motions surrounding her, the exchange of attacks that had her opponent in increasing retreat. Her hand refound the handle of her wagon.

"Forgetting someone?"

Before Gaara had the chance to react, a fist had broken through the earth, breaking his chin on impact. The clone was carrying more tags around his neck. The second blast had yet to clear when another wave of arrows had pierced his shield, with force strong enough to break through to the other side, if only by a centimeter.

For Sasuke, that was enough, as he leveled his next aim.

Gaara realized the tunnel of sunlight hitting his neck. Alarmed, he glanced aside to see one of the arrows had been larger than the others, and hollow.

Sasuke released his arrow. It effortlessly slid inside the first.

Blasts rang harsh in the arena, the cracks in Gaara's armor deepening, fragments slipping off his skin. The fight drew the attention of every spectator, bewitching in its violence and blood. Only Karin noticed the peripherals, the curious placement of barrels, encircling the arena like the numbers of a clock.

Sakura sat atop one of these barrels, the wagon by her side empty. She made no attempt to join the action center stage. After all, she was just a weak, pathetic girl. Her teammates were the fighters. They were also the performers, the audience too captured by their flashy tricks to see the barrels were almost empty, the grass glossy and earth damp.

Hanabi frowned at the fluctuating surges of chakra. The match was drawing to a close, he had no more-

Karin ran toward the staircase. She needed to get out of here, the entire stadium was going to-

Temari stepped back at the angry scream. Not good. Gaara was losing control, his movements becoming erratic, he-

White blinded her vision, the aftereffects of bubbling yellow and red caught in her pupils, the world fallen to a ringing silence. By the time Temari recovered, there was nothing but black, surges of hot ash blanketing the air. Unbalanced, she forced herself up.

"Gaara!"

Temari shouted again, but found herself mute even to her own ears.

Sand released itself from its shell form. Gaara's eyes dilated, adjusting to the inversion of color, the world reduced to silhouettes of black against hot-orange.

"You think that is enough to destroy me?" He stepped across the puddles of gasoline. Flames floated on top, airy and bright, grazing his ankle as he passed.

No response. Rabid, Gaara spun around, sand whipping through the air in blind search of his assailants. "What's the matter? Hiding now?"

He laughed. "Are you afraid?"

Temari whipped out her fan, swiveling it once to clear out the immediate smoke. Shit. This was not part of the plan.

The volume of background hysteria rose as sound returned to her ears, the trampling footsteps and screams of "Fire!"

Karin slowed, turning back to see a pillar of black smoke broken through the skies, fires spreading along the balcony rooftops. The Sakura girl was never interested in a simple, clean explosion. She wanted everything to burn. Slowly. Painfully. An irreversible chemical process that left the world barren.

On top of the wall, Genma breathed through his sleeve. Haruno Sakura. Only now did he understand why the name sounded familiar, as he recalled the night a little girl followed Raidō into the interrogation office. She had been found alone, standing in the street before her burning apartment. Someone had broken inside and killed her parents, she claimed.

Sakura closed her eyes, as the hot air lifted her higher and higher. Gripping onto the straps of her parachute, she imagined herself on a swing, her legs rocking to and fro. The wind felt good against her hair.

By her side were her teammates, surveying the damage. "You think he'll come up here?" Naruto asked.

"He can try."

Gaara's breathing grew heavy.

The ground spun. In a splinter and crack, a nearby tree toppled, adding to the confusion. Something strange was happening to him. Something bad. He did not feel right. But how was that possible. He did not feel. He did not feel anything, and certainly not...

… pain.

Sakura stared into the spiraling inferno below. "He won't succeed."

Because she had walked her laps around the arena. Because she had done her research, timed the number she needed to make before even the most exhaustless of shinobi depleted of chakra. Because she understood just how little a person could do once stripped of that chakra, how the simplest of tasks become impossible.

Gaara fell, hand in an attempt to reach the heavens above, somewhere past the black where there was still sun and blue skies.

No, he would not succeed.

Instead, he would suffocate. He would suffer. He would scream, but no one would hear him. He would cry, but no one would help him. Just him, alone, as his skin blisters, his flesh melted alive by the very thing that protects him.

"Gaara!"

Their father- Temari found both the Kage seats empty. Her expression hardened, as she pushed herself through the chaos. She jumped.

Her fan flipped open, sending a spiral of wind into the ground below.

"_The fūton has become a rarity in today's battlefield. That gives you an edge, Temari-sama, as your opponents are less likely to be prepared for one._"

The flames cleared, only to flow back, stronger and taller than before.

"_But do not forget what made the fūton obsolete in the first place._"

Gritting her teeth, Temari ignored the ignition of her clothes, the scorching pain against her skin, as she weaved her fan across the air once, twice.

"_Do not forget what made Konohagakure rise, and Sunagakure bow._"

Third step, fourth step, as she bisected the wind in accordance to the scissor dance, the body of her fan incinerated with holes.

"_Fire._"

The fire refollowed the guidance of gasoline, bursting to life at the renewed source of oxygen, flames tunneling towards the user.

"_Whatever you do, Temari-sama, you must not oppose fire_."

Outside, Lee patted the head of a crying child. Gathered around in a crowd was the audience, still rendered speechless, shaking, watching in horror as the balconies toppled and collapsed under its own weight.

"Is that everyone?" Genma called.

No. Under the Byakugan, Hanabi caught the flaring disturbance of one last chakra source from the center of the arena, contracting, folding, shaping...

Release.

Genma toppled forth at the blast of wind. Waves of debris surged through the streets, as trees unrooted and architecture bent. Ahead, the civilians lied prone, scattered across the road.

The air finally stilled. Temari opened her eyes, her body blackened and raw. The skeletal frame of her fan dropped to the ground, as she forced her legs to move.

"Gaara."

Unlike wind, sand was strong against fire. Sand barricaded against fire. Sand could not be hurt by fire. Unlike her, Gaara was supposed to be indestructible.

Temari stopped before her hand could touch the cheek of her brother. She rose.

No, she had no more brothers.

Sakura stood on top the wall, watching Temari turn her back and leave without a word.

Blast sodium carbonate into sand, then add heat. Death was no longer an unknown, but a science.

Sakura smiled. Left in the middle of the arena was a statue, an elegant balance between the organic and the inorganic, the contortions of physiology immortalized in glass.

Death was no longer grotesque, but beautiful.


	8. Invasion, Part I

Naruto descended, his parachute transforming back into a clone before dispersing. "Looks like we didn't need plan B after all, huh."

Sasuke observed the wreckage, the arena silent and grey. Above, the sun had disappeared behind clouds, ash thick in the air. The real battle had only begun.

They turned to their third teammate.

Sakura had both hands clasped behind her back, eyes lost in the distance. Her thoughts remained encrypted inside her own mind, the end of her communication line mute. She did not appear aware of their presence, filled with a blankness that festered the apprehension inside Naruto's stomach. He had hopes the victory would allow her to find solace. Damaged or not, she needed to move on. And if this... all of _this_, did not help, he was at a loss as to what would.

Sasuke studied the kunoichi with care, the subtleties of her posture and command. No, she _was_ moving on. But what Naruto wanted to see was her moving backwards, be stitched back to her old self. What Sasuke saw was someone moving forward. Someone evolving, adapting, taking what worked, leaving behind what didn't. Someone who had sunken into an abyss and was now clawing her way out, one drag of the fingernails after another. The question was whether or not they would be able to accept what emerges.

Sakura's voice returned.

"Let's go."

Between her teeth was the shell of a hyōrōgan. She bit down, letting the bitterness overpower her senses, then disappeared with a flicker. Her teammates followed.

Left behind in the arena was glass.

It cracked.

.

The ANBU halted before a barrier, each corner stationed by an Oto nin. Inside the chakra prism, a kunai pressed against the neck of their Hokage.

"Grief of your sons is understandable, Kazekage-dono, but starting a war is not the solution."

There was only a laugh in return.

"You have no idea what you've just unleashed."

.

On the hospital bed, Hinata lied strapped to wires, an oxygen mask secured around her head and inscription tags wrapped down her limbs. Bouquets of flowers had accumulated on nightstand over the past weeks, a few of the azaleas wilted dry.

Neji removed these stalks, along with the befallen petals. He sat by her bed, his crutch propped against the wall. Peeking under the hem of his jinbei were weaves of bandages, from jaw to toe, his right ear and eye wrapped by gauze. The nurses did not want him mobile for at least another two weeks, but lying bedridden every day had grated his nerves.

A knock at the door. Four guards, two ANBU and two Hyūga, parted for the regular nurse. She wheeled in a medicine cart, before stopping short of the bed to uncap a syringe. Neji paid her no attention, still brushing petals off the nightstand when she positioned the needle before the tubing to the IV.

The nurse pressed her thumb against the plunger, and the head of the needle blew off with a silent pop of air.

She craned her neck and saw the needle had embedded itself in the hard wood of a crutch, delicately repositioned between her and the final remaining Hyūga. In the background, four bodies had hit the floor, the guards dead.

Her feet were wet. She blinked, as the contents of the IV dripped onto her shoes, the tubing cut by the slash of a shuriken from under the bed. He must have thought the syringe was meant for the girl.

"Are you working for Orochimaru." The only thing to betray his composure was the fistful of crumpled petals, fingers caging around them a tad too rigid.

The nurse smiled. "You're on a different level than the others."

The crutch swiveled, collecting the assault of poisoned darts in its sweep across the bed, before the tip dealt a blunt blow to her ribs.

On the floor, she rolled her head until she faced her enemy, dead eyes fixated on the center of his forehead. "Such shame. You'd have been perfect."

Neji dug the crutch deeper into her stomach. "What does Orochimaru want with Hinata-sama."

A last breath escaped her lungs. "Greatness."

Her chakra circulation stopped, the last influences of enemy control withdrawn from the brain. Her body had stopped being warm a long time ago.

Neji deactivated his Byakugan. Steadying his knees, he limped back towards the bed, where he gathered Hinata to his chest.

By the next billow of the curtains, all wires were unplugged, the room lifeless.

.

On top of the water tower, Kabuto reopened his eyes. Getting the Hyūga heiress was more difficult than expected. He may need to use those four after all. But first... he returned his attention to the summoning scroll before him. He never expected Gaara to be defeated in the tournament, but it had saved him a considerable amount of work.

Outside the arena, Karin trembled. Even after the fire cleared, the air remained abnormally quiet, as if abandoned by nature. The surrounding energy was as saturated as the clouds above. Something was gathering.

Kabuto smiled, a gleam in his glasses. On top of the scroll was a tea kettle, battered and cracked from age.

Something was _coming_, Karin realized, her footwork in uneven retreat. Except this time, she did not know if she could escape.

A beam of light shot down from the skies to the earth, pulled straight into the heart of Konohagakure.

All across the village, broomsticks paused, heads peaked out from windows, pedestrians stopped in the streets. After two precarious minutes, the beam of light finally thinned. Then it dissipated altogether.

Civilians were ready to resume their work when there came a rumble, akin to a roll of thunder. Only the rumble came not from the skies, but from the earth, the noises of creaking wood and grating concrete magnifying into an eruption.

Hana rolled onto the ground, ninken shielded in her arms, as the earth beneath them undulated in waves. All around, apartment complexes caved inwards like cards, telephone poles kept from toppling by snagged wires. One wall of the post office disconnected from the tree, iron pipes exposed and electrical wires sparking.

"Is everyone okay?" she yelled, before feeling a hot flash against her back, splinters of burnt wood spat into the streets. Behind, a fire had exploded to life, gasoline leaking from a burst pipe. She caught sight of a white flash of fur. "Wait, Akamaru!"

However, Akamaru had already ran back inside their house, just as the next shockwave hit, and the village was thrust into shadow. Hana paled at the sight of the rising beast.

.

"I-Ibiki-san."

At the southern gate, Ibiki felt his fingers go numb, struck by a terror he had not experienced in over twelve years. Beside him, a shinobi stopped mid-way through his report. There had been no sightings of enemy nin along the village wall. Now they knew why.

Ibiki refound his nerve. "Get me in touch with the Chief Commander!" The command broke his subordinates out of their shock.

"D-do we go? Do we help them?" asked Shinobu. His hands shook at the collapse of a particular high-rise tower that marked the intersection of his home street. His wife was not nin. His son was two. He had warned them to stay indoors today. He had-

The men were divided, half with their focus on the inside of the village, half with their focus out. The need to fight. The need to flee. Only, no one will move from their position. Their duty was to protect the wall. Enemy nin were still waiting on the other side, anticipating a drop in their forces.

Though there will be little point to protecting the wall if everyone inside is already dead.

Ibiki dared himself to stare into the eyes of the bijū, finally snapped awake from its slumber. The ichibi dipped its head back, unleashing a roar that sent remaining structures collapsing in dominos.

.

"W-what was that!" Deep within the bedrock of the Hokage monument, inside the protection shelter, Moegi unplugged her ears. Beside her, Udon clutched onto his glasses, tears in his eyes. The lamps revealed a roomful of hyperventilating children.

"Don't panic. As teachers, we will protect you all." The assurance lowered a few shoulders but not many. Iruka felt sweat roll down his neck, his jaw tense. Once the chamber sealed, it was impossible to tell what was happening on the outside. But that noise was not human.

His fingers subconsciously touched his nose, thumb tracing along the ridge of his scar, when the floor shook again. Another sob burst out.

"Oh, will you babies calm down!" Konohamaru stood up, chest heaved. "Whatever's going on out there, the Hokage is going to handle it! So shut your blubbering, jeez." With that, he plopped back down, cheek turned and arms crossed.

His back hunched. They were going to be fine. His grandpa was going to handle it.

.

Orochimaru's face split at the earthquakes and screams. "My, these bijū waste no time." He laughed. "What will you do, Sarutobi-sensei."

Throughout the streets, Konoha troops lied scattered, impaled by stalagmites of sand. Yūgao coughed into her mask, blood trailing down her neck. Her grip against the hilt of her katana loosened. Her final sight was of a bubbling black sphere in the sky.

From the shadows, wrinkled hands kneaded into a cane.

"Danzō-sama, do we have the command to interfere."

An army of awaiting soldiers lined behind. The bijūdama coagulated, then unleashed, funneling towards the Hokage monument.

"Danzō-sama!"

A wrap of scroll weaved around the bomb midair, followed by a three-sixty assault of concealment tags and final bat of an adamantine staff. The bijūdama made an unstable swerve, resulting in an explosion several kilometers north of the village.

On top of the Hokage monument, Hiruzen slammed down his staff, his old teammates flanking his sides. Koharu secured a loose hair pin back in place, while Homura unrolled more of his scroll.

The commander of the northern patrol collapsed in relief. "Hokage-sama."

Inside the barrier, shoulders shook. "The better question is..." Anko peeled away the flesh from her face, unrestrained mirth in her eyes. "What will _you_ do, sensei."

Both disguises shed. Orochimaru and Anko leapt to opposite sides of the barrier, hands in motion. At the final seal, summoning inscriptions spiraled to life, the rise of three coffins and the unraveling of three scrolls.

Naruto stepped off the Earth scroll while Sasuke stepped off the Heaven. In the middle, Sakura kicked away hers, just as the lids of the opposing coffins fell.

"Isn't this like looking in a mirror," Orochimaru mused, his lips pulled into an ironic smile. The coffins had sunk back into the ground, leaving behind his three reanimations, two shinobi in antiquated armor and one kunoichi.

Naruto blinked. "Uh, Sakura-chan, who are they?"

It took a moment for Sakura to break out of her shock, the blizzard of questions within her mind restacked into order. The textbooks within her mental library were quick to supply Naruto with his answer.

"The founders of Konohagakure."

.

"The found-" Naruto closed his mouth. Admittedly, math was not his strongest subject, but uh, the Sandaime was old, and the Shodaime came before the Sandaime, so the Shodaime must be even older, which means…

"Wow, that's one really good facelift," he mumbled, stroking his chin.

A thump to his head. "No, you idiot, they're dead. Dead!" Sakura lowered her fist. Well, supposedly dead…

Unfortunately for her, not as dead as she would have liked. The reincarnated body of Senju Hashirama needed only a raise his hand for the earth to quiver. In a burst, trees shot in all directions, a massive growth of flora to every corner of the barrier.

A fūma shuriken freed Naruto of his mokuton restraints, before curving back in a boomerang. Sasuke seized hold of his weapon in time to block an incoming kama attack, only to be caught within the spiral of the Sharingan.

While Sakura shattered the genjutsu with the slam of an imaginary hammer, Naruto swept her body away from an assault of senbon. Sasuke deflected the remaining attacks, and the team stood back to back.

The enemy nin encircled them. Sakura yelped as wood ensnared their bodies, set ablaze by a draconic inferno and finally doused in a hurricane of water.

Pressed against the bark of a tree, Naruto watched the complete obliteration of their kawarimi. Holy _fuck_. When Anko said this was going to be their last mission together, she was not kidding. Because after this, they were _so_ promoted. Or dead. Most likely dead.

They were hilariously outclassed. Sasuke's speed assessment did nothing to calm Sakura's nerves, as her eyes flashed over to Naruto. "Activate the kyūbi."

"Easier said than done, Sakura-chan!"

Sasuke threw tagged kunai at the incoming mokuton hands. They could not resort to the kyūbi. The last time Naruto went into kyūbi mode, he destroyed a mountain. Nearly destroyed himself and the team too. And despite all their efforts in the past month, he could barely activate it on a conscious level, much less control it.

Sakura hated when Sasuke disagreed with her. She rolled out of the way of his explosion, only to find herself at the foot of the enemy. Her heart stopped, as the dusted figure of Uchiha Madara watched her with disregard, funeral ashes cracked from his skin and onto her hair.

She failed to register what happened next, just one giant whiplash. The flash of metal, a hand, a breath, Sasuke collapsed by her side, and both their bodies buried under a pile of Naruto's kage bunshin.

Outside the barrier, the ANBU watched flames engulf every edge of the prism. They leapt back when the air around them began to incinerate as well, a wave of heat bursting into the atmosphere. This type of katon was on a whole different league.

The barrier rippled, viscous under the heat. At the corners, sweat dripped onto the ground, skin sweltering red. Four Oto nin redoubled their chakra, the swirls of their curse seals emerging. The barrier stabilized once more.

Inside, the fire had eaten itself, transmuted into smoldering clouds. Blankets of volcanic ash layered onto the ground, the earlier woodlands reduced to skeletal branches amidst flurries of grey.

Orochimaru emerged from the remains of his snake summoning while Anko emerged from hers.

"Do you just plan on copying me, Anko? Did your talents sink down to Kakashi's level."

Anko sneered. "Like you were ever the one for originality."

Her foot pivoted, his Kusanagi locked by an intersection of daggers. Her parry avoided the edge of his blade, relying on momentum and angle to redirect his attack. The Kusanagi stretched just as a third dagger flew by.

The sleeve of her jacket tore open. Strands of his hair fell down.

Across the barrier, a dome cracked, then poofed away, layer by layer, piece by piece. Inside its shell protection, Sakura coughed, eyes tearing, head dizzy. Ashes burned against her skin. It was one thing to read about the Gōka Mekkyaku; it was another thing to survive it.

The final piece of the dome fell onto Sakura's lap, as Naruto released his henge.

"Naruto."

She reached for him, only to retract her hand. She shook, staring at the peaks of white bone against red-black flesh. He was not moving.

"NARUTO!"

.

Temari closed her eyes at the distant screams, limping further into the forest. She never believed in superstitions, never held any type of faith. But even she could see the wheel of karma.

"You heard the order, open the gates!"

The main gate of the village opened with a loud groan. Floods of civilians and shinobi alike made their escape, children in hand and possessions in tow. Other parts of the wall collapsed in a series of detonations, allowing survivors to climb over the timbers to the outside.

Ibiki turned his attention to the Chief Commander. "This is a risque move."

For decades, the village had controlled its borders with an iron fist. To issue a mass evacuation would have been unthinkable. Fortunately for them, Nara Shikaku had an inclination for unthinkable strategies.

The enemy had refused to move, waiting for the ichibi to annihilate the majority of Konoha forces. They would only infiltrate the village in the aftermath, to clean up any remaining survivors.

Well, if they refused to come to the village, then the village would just have to come to them.

From the north came another howl to the winds, followed by more rumbles of the earth. A Suna shinobi descended onto the camp, where the captain stood in waiting.

"Report!"

"Konoha forces have been spotted. They are moving this way."

The jōnin within the battalion exchanged a look. They had not expected Konoha to divide their manpower, not if the village wished to minimize damage from the ichibi or save their population. Such strategy was aggressive, if not foolhardy.

The captain ignored their murmurs in favor of the scout. His troubled expression had not gone unnoticed. "How many men."

The scout had no numbers for him, just that the force was large. The captain frowned. "And how large is large? Thirty men?"

"S-sixty…"

The captain turned to his troops, order on tongue, when the scout finished. "...thousand."

There was a pause, before a snort from the back. "Oi, learn to count!" Sajin made a rising gesture with his flask. "The entire shinobi force of Konoha can't be more than six thousand, let alone sixty."

A round of snickers followed, but the scout held his place, shifting a nervous glance towards the captain. "It's not just the shinobi coming, captain. It's everyone."

Before the captain could respond, their second lieutenant rose, palms freed from the earth. "He is not incorrect. I sense a mass movement, at different levels of velocity. The first wave will hit us in twenty minutes."

"How many men?"

"Eighty in the first wave. Five hundred in the second. Two thousand in the third, and…" She paused. "Sixty thousand would not be an incorrect estimate for the final."

Ibiki flipped close his lighter. Below, the streets had quieted of activity, empty except for the crackles of fire and crumbles of infrastructure. The wind carried another howl, as the ichibi fought against the Hokage and remaining platoons of ANBU. Their numbers had reduced to a meager handful, their seals and barriers broken with every additional thrash.

The Sandaime may not be able to contain this. The village may not be salvageable.

Shikaku exhaled a breath of smoke. Luckily, he had already planned for the worst-case scenario. "It takes three days to travel to Sunagakure, I believe," he mused.

Ibiki did not hide his amusement. "A counter-invasion?"

"Of the great military villages, Sunagakure has the weakest numbers. And they have only been dwindling ever since the last war, relying on terrain to deter enemy forces. Their land is infertile, so bordering countries never saw any appeal." Shikaku paused when the familiar voice from Intelligence echoed in his mind. Found them.

With a grim smile, Shikaku threw his cigarette over the edge. It landed somewhere in the rubble below, the tip extinguished. "Unfortunately for Sunagakure, we're not too picky at this point." If he timed this right, their population may find new housing within the week. With that, he left to greet Inoichi and Chōza on the front lines.

.

The air was bitter. Sasuke awakened to an ashen wasteland, a serpent trail leading up to his current spot. Dragged alongside him was Naruto, whose eyes were fluttering back to consciousness.

"About time you boys are up."

The ground at Sakura's feet was spotted with color. More blood dripped off her fingernails, down her ankles, the edges of metal pierced through her from every direction.

"Sakura-chan!" Naruto kicked ashes behind him, scrambling up in time to catch her fall. Her body rolled listlessly in his arms.

His pupils narrowed. "_Sakura-chan_!"

A flash, the click of metal against metal. A kunai swiveled in Sasuke's hand, as he flickered up front, deflecting the next wave of attacks. Meanwhile, the real Sakura fell down to one knee. She swallowed back the iron in her mouth, her breath shallow, her body tremoring from hypovolemic shock.

"Sakura, you okay?" Sasuke froze at the sudden spike of chakra behind him. His eyes darted towards Naruto's prone figure, where a layer of orange chakra was bubbling.

"What did you do." Sasuke hissed, rushing forward only to stop mid-step. It was too late.

"He thinks I died," Sakura answered bluntly. Naruto's burn wound had been fatal. This was the only way to save him.

Slowly, flesh began to mend itself, as the regenerative powers of the kyūbi seized hold. Sakura closed her eyes. She did not regret her decision.

Straightening up, she forced herself to stand, eyes on the burnt carcasses of their enemies. Their own regeneration was almost complete, bodies sculpted layer by layer like paper mache. Their jaws reshaped, necks snapped in place, limbs materializing despite all her efforts to keep them disabled with explosive tags. Soon, they would be fully mobile, and she would no longer be able to keep them at bay.

"Sasuke, you're going to have to trust me on this one."

Anko took a double leap at the sudden screech. Then, a blast of chakra, far too demonic and dense to be human. Oho, sounded like her team finally got that kyūbi out. Her glee was cut short by the sinking of her foot. A pit of snakes hissed, wrapping around her leg and pulling her deeper into the genjutsu.

Her body broke through the ceiling and down into a familiar chamber, where a child was tapping a jar of formaldehyde. On the table lied beakers of various concoctions, the coils of snake skin in alcohol. The unbolting of a lock turned both their heads toward the door.

"_Sensei_!" The child ran through Anko, stopping in a flicker before the visitor. "_You're back_!"

Phosphorescent eyes examined the condition of the laboratory, not a single piece of equipment astray. "_There's no damage?_"

"_Oh, the kyūbi? Pft, no, the attack was mostly in the west of the village_." The child dropped the topic fast, in favor of another, even going so far as to give a swirl. "_Sensei_..." she said expectantly.

A flicker of recognition. "_You got promoted_."

Anko watched her younger self tug at her chūnin flak jacket, beaming with pride. "_While stinky Kakashi and everyone hid like cowards, guess who got the Military Medal of Honor! There's even talk of expunging my record._"

The bijū should come and play more often. Then she would finally be able to unleash her techniques without fear of repercussion, without all their stupid rules and regulations. She would show that stinky Kakashi who was the true prodigy of this village.

Not that she needed affirmation. After all, out of all the children in the village, she was the one to be chosen by Orochimaru of the Legendary Sannin. Out of all the children, she was the strongest. She was the brightest. She was the best, and she was _his_, as a palm cupped her cheek in a caress. Her smile brightened all that much more.

Anko remembered this now. It was the happiest day of her life.

.

Kurenai turned to the heavy sky, the funnels of smoke from their destroyed home. Twelve years ago, Anko had been of the children missing from the protection barrier. Even now, she was still missing.

From the village came a snap and whip, then the implosion of stone. The road before them rolled in waves, sending civilians in hysteria. One tree snapped, collapsing atop the shield erected by a group of chūnin. The tree threatened to break through, until a shadow jumped out of the tumult and the tree slashed to splinters.

Asuma descended, the chakra dissipated from his trench knife. "Come on, nothing to see here. Move along now." He beckoned the civilians to continue their path through the forest.

More wagons lied abandoned, wheels split and goods forgotten. A mother held her baby closer, the father securing them both under the protection of his cloak.

Asuma exchanged a look with Kurenai, who had equally gone pale at the sight of the distant stone cliffs, the monuments of their Hokage no longer recognizable by face. There was still a group of people who had not evacuated.

"Shikamaru, Chōji, protect the civilians for us, you hear?"

Shikamaru was about to say something, but his teacher had already flickered out, gone back to the village. Next to him, Chōji stared at the crowd of bleary faces, the carpenters and merchants and waitresses now dependent on them for survival.

"W-Well, what are you waiting for?" Chōji found his voice, his chest rising. "Move along. First one there gets all-you-can-eat barbeque, on me!"

Shikamaru was surprised to hear a few chuckles from the mob, the light of hope flashing across their expressions as they continued their march onward. No one noticed tremor in Chōji's fingers, how they balled into a fist. Chōji knew how to be brave when it mattered.

.

On the battle frontier, Chōza grinned when the enemy nin stood paralyzed. Shikaku stepped into the field, his shadow binding technique strangling the Suna shinobi by their necks. He turned to the third member of his old team. "Where are the rest?"

"In retreat," Inoichi said. "The ones here are just to stall us."

"Did they?"

"Stall us? No." Inoichi gave a dry smile. The Inuzuka currently had a bone to pick with Suna. Inoichi just hoped Tsume would save a few for him.

The second lieutenant blitzed through the forest. "Captain, they're advancing! We-"

She had yet to finish when something feral leapt out of the leaves, marring the shinobi to her left.

Ahead, the matriarch of Konoha's Inuzuka clan blocked their path, fangs bared. She had lost her son. She had lost her home. Now, it was their turn to lose.

With a charge, she razored through their forces, a pack of monstrous ninken following suit. A tantō locked onto the teeth of one hound, as the captain flickered before their second lieutenant. "I'll hold them off. Take our remaining forces and continue our retreat."

With a twist of his wrist, the blade slashed through, blood splashing onto both their bodies. "_Go!_"

She swallowed, before nodding. Her troops would not make it more than half a kilometer before an invisible force sent them in a collision back.

Hanabi unravelled from her form, palm outwards. Further behind, Hiashi stood calmly, his arms folded inside the sleeves of his robe. "We are now under martial law. A perfect opportunity, Hanabi, to perform your first kill."

"Yes, otou-san."

The second lieutenant clutched her side, fingers digging into the soil. She had only heard stories of the Hyūga, though it seemed they were no exaggeration. The blow had ruptured something inside her, one of her arms rendered paralyzed.

Hanabi shifted into her next kata, ready to finish them off when the air shifted. Alarmed, she swiveled on her heel, just as blades of wind cut through. Strands of hair fell at her feet.

The second lieutenant could only stare at the mounted figure before her. There was no other person in Sunagakure with that kind of yōkai summoning. "T-Temari-dono."

"I've reorganized our troops. Meet up with the eastern division back at our first checkpoint." There was no waver in her voice, no room for questions. The order was final.

Temari rode forth on Kamatari, before both disappeared into the air. The surrounding forest decimated, ripped through with the power of a tornado.

Hanabi braced herself, footwork in increasing retreat. Shit. The jūken was impenetrable against all forms of physical attack except one: wind.

Shikaku leapt onto the next tree with difficulty, his foothold uneven. Everywhere, severed branches flew past at alarming speeds.

"What's going on, Inoichi," he shouted, squinting through the debris. His chakra helped him latch onto the bark, but even that was slipping.

"I don't know. Shibi-san and his kikaichū are caught in the whirlwind ahead." Inoichi forced a descent, back pressed against a boulder to shield from the wind. A new voice entered his mind, this time from the north.

Chōza caught the change in his friend's expression. "What now?"

"Oto nin have been spotted. There's trouble in the civilian party."

.

All around, Oto nin engaged in combat with Konoha shinobi. Shikamaru and Chōji were ushering the civilians away from the chaos when a monstrosity rose from the distant foliage. On top of three gargantuan snakes were three figures.

Dosu chuckled. "We're not letting you get away that easily. Kin! Zaku!"

Their strike stopped midair. Shikamaru shook, forcing himself still under his shadow imitation technique, releasing the second before a multi-sized Chōji dealt his punch.

"Now Ino, use-!"

Shikamaru stopped. Behind him was only a shivering civilian girl. She had her mouth open to warn him, a finger pointed toward the incoming snake. It was too late.

.

Thumb against thumb to create a window with the hands, as per signature of the Yamanaka's shintenshin no jutsu.

Green eyes narrowed, before a simple aim and fire. Sasuke caught Sakura's body just before her fall.

Sakura stood amidst a void of white. Only this time, there was not one door before her, but two. The key Naruto had given her would not open this second door, so she was forced to do this the old fashioned way. A battle axe materialized in her hands, as she swung again and again, pushing her conscious deeper into his subconscious until she finally broke through, the chain and lock sent flying on the other side.

The door led to a series of stairs, further and further down until she stopped at a tunnel. Overhead lights buzzed, revealing a labyrinth of narrow walls but high ceilings. She stepped down, the coldness of water soaking her feet.

She ventured forth, with no company except for the dripping noise of a leak from the industrial pipes above.

An echo. Sakura followed the sound, passing one abandoned hallway after the next, the spaces widening, the atmosphere thickening. The closer she got, the more distinct the noise became, less beast and more human.

In the final hallway, there was only darkness ahead. Before she could take her next step, a sudden clang had her falling back, her breath caught in her lungs. A throaty laugh.

A pair of luminescent eyes peered down at her beyond the bars of a gate, cheshire smile baring rows of teeth.

"**_Well, well, well. Look what we have here_.**"

Sakura closed her mouth. The kyūbi. It was sentient.


	9. Invasion, Part II

A sinister chakra crawled along the walls. The water on the floor began to froth, curdling into an animate form.

Sakura found herself shuffling back at the jaws of a beast, as it bursted through the hallway with a howl. Hot steam whipped by, fluttering her hair in all directions.

From behind the gate, the kyūbi laughed at her paralyzed form.

"_**Why don't you come closer?**_" The mouth stretched in mirth, teeth interlocked. "_**I'm hungry.**_"

Sakura forced her breathing to steady, ignoring the palpitations of her heart and undying instinct to run away, to _crawl_ away. The kyūbi's chakra was overwhelming hers, she realized. It was pushing her out. Her fingernails scraped against the floor. That was not happening. Not until she got what she needed.

"Can I offer a different meal?" Her voice was tight but firm. She gathered the strength to stand up, then stared into the slit eyes of the demon. If this creature was sentient, then maybe it would be open to negotiation.

The kyūbi gave a bemused hum, if it could be interpreted as such. Sakura cannot distinguish anything past a simmering redness, and not the most benign of eyes.

The smile returned, as sharp as ever. "_**If you think you can manipulate me into doing your bidding like you did this human boy, you are mistaken. I have no interest in your battles, Haruno Sakura. Accept your fate and die.**_"

The response caught Sakura speechless, though her shock soon dissolved to anger. "Don't speak like we aren't all in the same mess," she hissed. "If I die, Naruto dies, and you die."

It was a pale threat. The kyūbi was immortal, existent since the beginning of shinobi time. If the host died, he would be reborn, no different than the case with the ichibi.

Sakura could not argue against that, except he would be captured again - and the human world _will_ capture him again, if history had anything to say about it. But instead of putting him inside a boy next time, maybe they would stick him inside some glorified chamber pot. Maybe he would prefer to rot inside that for a millennia or two.

Her feet remained planted amidst the creep of chakra, contorted and dark. She had surprisingly less fear of sentient things; yōkai or yūrei, bijū or beast, none of those things could ever hold a candle to the impersonal entity that was death.

She sneered. Besides, she forgot the mention one last thing: this fight was not even hers. She had no beef with any of their current opponents.

But if her history lessons served her correctly, she was under the impression the kyūbi might. Senju Hashirama, Uchiha Madara, and Uzumaki Mito... did those names ring a bell?

Slitted eyes snapped open, though Sasuke knew it was not Naruto behind those eyes. The barbarity had been tamed, as lucid as it was civil. The original rampage of chakra had thinned itself into a film coating, down the body and feathering out into the tail of a cloak.

There was no carelessness in the hand seals, every last flick of the finger done with precision. This was Sakura in control, as she seized hold of a clone. In her hand, the clone henged into a sword.

Only, the sword was different from the standard katana Naruto would mimic. It was not metal. The lack of solidity did not escape Sasuke's notice, how the blade rippled between each additional henge, undulating across different shades of black. It continued to calibrate itself, morphing again and again in search of the optimal shape and volume.

Sakura glanced back.

Sasuke nodded in understanding, retreating with her old body as she sprang forth in Naruto's. The ground cracked from under her foot, her speed increasing until she propelled forth in a flicker of light.

The regeneration completed, every last strip of skin pulled in place. Hashirama caught her blade with a clap of his hands, a forced halt. But unlike her blade, Sakura was unstopped. Her momentum had transferred upwards into a flip, a roll above then behind, the blade swiveled an one-eighty in between his palms, transmuted from sword to axe that sliced clean from head to chest.

Sakura yanked her weapon free, letting the body drop.

One down.

From a distance, Sasuke watched the remaining enemies reposition themselves. Behind even his eyes, their movements were phantom images, disappearing and reappearing into the very fabric of space. But speed was not a simply matter of how fast you can move. It was also about how fast your _attack_ can move. The time for your chakra to mold, the time for your weapon to travel. And in terms of attack...

Sakura weaved across the field, untouched by the rain of fire and senbon, before finally breaking with a pivot. She rose, while her opponents fell.

In terms of attack, Sakura was _faster_.

The spear in her hands shrunk to one-fourth of its length, back to its original size then liquefying. The amorphous substance floated above her palm, before shooting toward the befallen enemies. It melted over them, coating with a liquid as black as crude oil.

Theory continued to run inside her mind. Chaos realigned into order. Parallel lines organized into a three-dimensional lattice. The substance stiffened.

Sasuke could tell victory was theirs. Whatever strange material that Sakura was using, it was strong. Harder than steel. Tighter than elastane. Their opponents were immobilized.

That did not mean Sakura was done. The bodies suspended in the air, brought before her. One by one, she examined their twisted expressions and frozen screams, traced every wrinkle, counted every teeth.

"What do you want to do with them."

Her tone was strangely tranquil. Sasuke realized she was not speaking to him.

"I see."

With a twirl of her finger, her enemies stopped being humanoid in shape, twisted into a corkscrew. In a series of horrific noises, the substance bent and folded, stretched and squeezed, the contents inside forced into the same shapes. The crunches, the snaps and slops. Finally, her hand closed. Sakura did not blink as her opponents crushed.

Sakura had learned from the preliminaries. Attack and defense. Speed. Weaponry. Weakness. Support. Coordination. She had learned how to win battles.

Ino had not been the winner of hers.

Her fist squeezed tighter. Her enemies shrunk smaller, steam hissing in the air. Blood dripped down her hand, her nails dug into her palm, her knuckles white. She squeezed tighter.

The chilling laugh of kyūbi echoed, as together they savored the show. Did they understand now. The feeling of suffocation. Of imprisonment. Of their souls squeezed out of their bodies, the life squeezed out of their souls. Again, and again, and again...

"Sakura-chan!"

Her pupils flickered from red to blue to red, her vision blurring. At the same time, a hand seized her shoulder.

"That's enough." Sasuke's expression was as hard as his voice, his grip unrelenting. He hid many things, but his concern was not one of them.

Sakura snapped out of her daze.

Her chakra connection faltered, resulting in the fall of three translucent spheres. They shattered upon impact with the ground, broken into shards of raw and gleaming diamonds.

Her weapon of choice had reached its final stage, the last allotrope of the boring, banal, common, cheap, ordinary and extraordinary element that was carbon.

.

"They grow up fast."

By her side, Orochimaru watched the scene before them. Anko only had a faint awareness of his presence and even fainter awareness of her senses, the fluctuation and noises back in the physical world.

Instead, she could only watch herself. How happy she was upon receiving her gift, a happiness not grounded in violence or mischief, but pure delight. Her mentor then kissed her forehead and promised her an even greater one, if she proved herself worthy. She was more than eager to accept his challenge, though not necessarily for the reward. She would have done anything for him.

Because she loved him. She loved, loved, loved him, with a fervor, with a fear, with hot-blooded dedication and cold-blooded calculation, bombs strapped to her chest and a knife intimate to her lips. She loved him almost as much as the moonlit view from the rooftops, the jumps and collisions, slashes and splits, barrages and downpour, the crackles of applause and closing red curtain as she walked away.

She loved him almost as much as he loved her, his pupil, his precious, his prodigy. She, who proved herself to be strongest. The brightest. The best.

"_Anko, I have one last task. Will you do me the favor?_"

His palm cupped her cheek in a caress, as he closed the distance between them for a whisper.

"_Bring me Uchiha Itachi._"

She had been so happy. She had been so loved. She had been-

A knife dug into ground, as she knelt alone in the downpour. The tattoos down her limbs had retreated back into the seal at her neck. Dropping from her power high left her even emptier than before.

Anko watched her younger self limp towards her old chūnin flak jacket, The jacket lied in the mud, half-burnt from the battle. She picked it up and fastened on what she could, before trudging her way back to the village.

"_My Anko did not succeed_."

She said nothing. His eyes looked no different, nor his words, nor his smile, nor his touch. Nothing about her mentor looked any different. She understood nothing was the same though. Not him. Not her. Not their relationship. The skins looked identical, but the insides had changed.

"No, I did not..." Anko echoed alongside her younger self. Together, they watched their one and only cherished person walk out the door. There was no pause, no glance back. Just the faint echoes of his footsteps, the length of his shadow stretching into infinity.

He left, and she stood alone.

.

Karin winced at the stream of light, something she did not expect to see again. While she coughed, Tenten worked to pry free the collapsed architecture.

"Hang in there." Tenten lifted a plank, before turning to Lee. "Over here!"

Together, they worked to clear enough of wreckage. To their surprise, there were more survivors below, two senior citizens and a toddler inside a protective void, safe amidst the cave-in.

The ground shook, rattling the structures and sprinkling dust everywhere, but they managed to pull the family to safety.

"You okay?" Tenten asked.

Before Karin could respond, another rumble brought everyone to their knees, the sand in the air thick enough to choke on. No. She wasn't. She should have kept running. She had almost been out. But it all happened too fast. She had seen the leaning building, the collapsing skybridge, the panicked pedestrians heading right below it and- She reacted.

After the shaking stopped, Lee guided the family towards an approaching carriage, where a dozen wounded lied. The carriage was self-moving on four stumpy legs and a thick tortoise shell above to act as shield.

Karin dropped her shoulders. Unlike her, these Konoha nin did not fail to evacuate. They chose to stay.

Somewhere northeast was the snap of a chain.

"The restraints are failing," Lee said, eyes on the distant twister. The wrath of the ichibi only grazed past their current location, but still too close for comfort. The noise was unbearable, the air coarse, their visibility coming and going in waves. They squinted through a world blurred in sepia, and even when the worst of each surge passed, the village that greeted them back was unrecognizable.

Lee decided. "I'll go help Gai-sensei stall the beast."

"No." By his side, Tenten strapped on the last of her gear. "My binding techniques will buy everyone more time. I'll go."

"But-"

"Lee, these people are going to need your speed and strength to make it. You're staying with them." Before he could object, Tenten added with a grin, "That's an order."

Tenten rarely pulled the rank card, but that did not mean it was not in her ability. And Konoha martial laws were currently in full play. To Karin, she tossed a scroll. "Karin, is it? Food and supplies all in there. Trust you can perform a summon, help Lee keep everyone alive?"

When Karin gave a hesitant nod, Tenten returned with a curt nod of her own, then departed with a backflip. They watched her disappear into the haze of sand.

Quiet, Karin stared at the scroll in hand, then at the carriage of passengers, and finally at the far distance, beyond the haze, beyond the ruins. The scroll disappeared inside her pocket. The glare of her glasses concealed her eyes.

These Konoha nin... they were too arrogant.

.

Shikamaru sat on the ground, baffled at the towering monstrosity before him, the sight of three large snakes made into a seating cushion by an even larger toad. Standing atop its snout is the summoner, in a pose as idiosyncratic as it was iconic.

A Konoha shinobi opened his mouth. "J-Jiraiya-sama?"

Jiraiya surveyed the damage before him, before his attention fell on the lashes of sand in the distant village. Coming back was the right choice after all. He just hoped he had made it in time.

Recovered Oto nin flashed in the air for a three-sixty assault. Jiraiya readied his hand seals. The power of the ichibi was not something to take lightly. If only the old man could hold on a little longer, Jiraiya thought. A little longer, just until these civilians were safe.

.

"We can't seal this!" Homura wheezed. He sank to one knee, the other trembling from exertion.

Koharu stared at the abomination before them, a conglomeration of veins and tissues and mighty enough to be its own geological structure. The last person capable of a sealing of that caliber died long ago. Best they could hope for now was a stall. Give the villagers enough time to escape.

Her eyes landed on the sky.

"Get into contact with Hiruzen. I'll find the ANBU squads," she told Homura.

"You have a strategy."

"Sand has an elemental weakness. Water won't defeat it, but it can weigh the beast down enough to slow its movements." Victory was out of the question. As was survival. The most they could do now was buy enough time.

"You want everyone to switch to suiton?" Homura asked.

"No."

Koharu continued to stare at the heavens, as if the gods above were delivering her a message.

"Katon," she whispered. "Set the village to fire. What is not already burning, make it so."

.

A figure sat at an undamaged section of the wall, unfazed by the disturbances all around. Slowly, a grin spread when Konoha lit up. District by district, street by street, the village glowed brighter and brighter.

The Fire country was infamous for its scorched earth policy, but there was some irony to seeing it befall upon its own military. This had to be Koharu's work: the cold calculation, old cynicism, all on top of her propensity for multipurpose solutions.

The finale was coming. Instabilities in the atmosphere had been obvious for a while now. North, south, east, west… all these tiny battles had thrown nature out of its balance, the violent twists and turns in wind, the blasts of tunneling heat. Soon, nature will take no more and retaliate.

Looked it like was a right choice to bring the sugegasa afterall.

.

Colors twinkled, so beautiful amidst a wasteland of grey. As Sakura stared at the diamonds, she could not help but think… easy. Easy. This fight had been so easy, it was a wonder her team had struggled in the beginning. It was a wonder they had to struggle, ever.

She looked down at her hands, the surge of chakra down to her fingertips. Only now did the concept of near infinite chakra register in her mind. The amount of power. The amount of potential. To have the universe within her grasp.

Her hands lowered, pressing together to form the release seal of the shintenshin.

Too bad it was all wasted on Naruto.

Returning to her body drained the last of her energy and will. Sakura wondered if this was how the gods felt when they fell from divinity. How the kyūbi felt. To be a slave to biology. To its pain. To its fear. Its blindness. Its mortality.

Dizzy, Sakura propped herself up. Her palm opened, and she stared blankly at the red. Blood. Her blood. Right, she was bleeding. Bleeding everywhere. What a mess, she was.

Time rushed by without her consent. She did not know when Sasuke was or was not by her side. She did not know when Naruto regained consciousness and control. They were talking to her, but their words were on backlog. Nothing registered except the weak beats of her heart.

"She can't hear us," Sasuke said, noting the dilation of her pupils. There was no focus. Their mental connection had severed, his mind empty of her presence.

He kept his hand pressed against her thigh, ignoring the warmness leaking through the cracks of his fingers, soaking into the fabric of her tights, onto her sandals. Even with his limited medical knowledge, he could tell one of her major arteries had been hit.

"We need to get help," he told Naruto. "Now."

Naruto failed to hide his panic. "Anko-sensei. I'll get Anko-sensei!"

"Go."

They exchanged a nod, and Naruto readied to dash off when a monotone voice froze them both in place.

"You children obviously still do not understand the mechanism of the edo tensei_._"

Another strip of flesh glued onto the jaw of Uchiha Madara, as he rolled a shard of diamond in between his fingers.

Both Naruto and Sasuke tensed. They watched in horror as he and two other masses slowly gained corporal form, pieces folded together like a cremation in reverse.

Senju Hashirama stole the diamond from Madara's grip. "Huh, that's me." He held the gem up, peeking into it with one eye. "Who knew I could get so small."

Sasuke narrowed his eyes. Something was off. This was the first time any of these reanimations spoke. Their intonations were flat, expressions stiff, and gestures uncanny. But beyond that, they radiated a different type of aura than before. It was still weighty, but also somehow unspeakably more... human.

A kama materialized before Madara's hand, killing intent spiking.

Or not.

"Wait, what are you doing?" Hashirama asked.

"Finishing the job."

"You can't kill them." Hashirama almost sounded offended. "Look at their headbands. They're Konoha. Hello, my Konoha children."

Madara sent what could only be described as a nasty look.

As their conversation dragged on, Naruto made eye contact with Sasuke, jerking his thumb and mouthing, "Weirdos."

Sasuke would agree, if not for the severity of their situation, and how their fates hinged on the outcome of an argument between two shinobi gods. What he did not expect was the abrupt halt in yelling.

Chains spiked through the stomachs of both founders. Before another word would be uttered, their souls were pulled from their earthly bodies, then spiraling out of existence. The act was quick and clean, with the performer of the technique stepping forth.

Naruto did not recognize her. The kunoichi they were fighting before was physically aged, a shriveled skeletal thing. The one before them now was deceivingly young and… well, hot. Her face was chiseled by aristocracy, smooth where it was smooth, sharp where it was sharp. The amount of care to her presentation would have been unobtainable for a common woman, down to the shaped eyebrows and elegant rolls of vibrant red hair. Only the style of her garbs connected her to the grandma, the same ceremonial kimono and antiquated ornaments.

It appeared she recognized Naruto. Or rather, she recognized the beast inside him. And the beast knew her.

A flash of rage burst from inside Naruto, one that escaped through his throat in a growl and hiss.

"Yield," she commanded.

A single flick of her finger, and the chakra of the kyūbi pulled back with enough force to send Naruto toppling.

"A jinchūriki with no control over its bijū. A freed bijū." Her focus returned from the outside to her present situation. "And the obvious consequence of a brother-in-law stealing secrets from my clan. Again."

She stepped closer, the barrier around them reacting to her presence.

"The shinigami is a gatekeeper. One who joins the beginning with the end. A deity of holy worship." The way she regarded her hand suggested sadness, until the moment she sharply looked up. "_The shinigami is not a power to be appropriated._" She punctuated with a stab of chakra to the heavens. The barrier shattered.

Though her presence was quietest of the founders, calmer and closer to reason, Naruto decided she was by far the most terrifying. And not just because she destroyed the other two with those crazy chains.

It had to do with the fact that she, in a strange way, reminded him of... Iruka? No, not Iruka. Kakashi? Still not it.

All of the people he knew were missing various degrees of something. Something that this woman had in whole, something created such belly-dropping fear yet blessed relief inside him.

And that was when he understood.

In a world fought by children, forged by children, run by children, ruled by children… she was the only adult.

.

Orochimaru smiled as the Anko drifted further into the darkness of her subconscious. Snakes weaved across her body, keeping her immobilized, asleep. He readied to let her sink within the genjutsu when colors blended once again, forming the fragment of one last memory.

A single voice in the void. "_You don't want me_."

Orochimaru froze when a boy appeared. His eyes were bright, inquiring, brimming with potential and such rich, rich color.

"_I never wanted you._"

"_You don't want him._"

"_He never wanted me._"

Itachi stood still as Anko freed him of his restraints. He had not expect her to be the type to take victory with such languor, or to play for mere sport.

"_You will not have me again._" It was more of a comment than a warning. Because he was intrigued. He was intrigued by her as he was by the rest of the world, though it was impossible to decipher what it was he wanted to know.

"_Neither will he,_" was all she said.

He seemed to know something new now. But what he thought of that knowledge, what he wished to do with that knowledge, was as ambiguous as what he thought of her, what he wished to do with her.

All Anko knew, it would not be violence. Not at this time, not at this place. Instead, he took his side of their encounter and left in grace, just before the first droplet of rain could touch the ground.

Meanwhile, Anko knelt, letting the weather wash her clean. Clean of her rage, her spite, her bitterness. Of her despair.

She could not make him love her. She could not love a man who did not. She tried, she tried so hard, but she could not succeed, she could not...

"... succeed."

Anko stood, hands pocketed, watching her former mentor awaken from her genjutsu. Did he understand now.

Orochimaru lifted his head, eyes staring into hers. "You had him," he said evenly.

She registered his seeping anger, his wonder, his joy, his pride, the last of which dominated, because despite everything, he was still hers, and she was still his. She was his, the little girl he handpicked from the orphanage, the unwanted little girl who shined with such talent and potential that no one but him could see. She was the little girl he trained, and the little girl he raised.

The last of the barrier fell.

It was unfortunate, as with the conclusion of any performance. But Orochimaru could say he left this one with deep satisfaction.

Anko watched him disappear alongside four Oto nin. The dagger in her hands swiveled, then returned to its sheath, just as her team found her.

"Good job!" she said with a cheery grin. "Knew you guys could do it."

Naruto dropped an eyebrow. If he did not know any better, their sensei looked remarkably rosy and rejuvenated. Death matches had a tendency do that to her, but the effect this time was on a whole new level.

Propped against his shoulder, Sakura was beginning to come around. Whatever healing voodoo that kunoichi did, it worked.

While they all made it out alive, the fight was not over. With the barrier gone, the hysteria of the outside became only more prominent. Chains of mass wildfire rose throughout the village, only to be quelled by sheets of pouring rain.

Another anchor flew free of Tenten's trap. The ichibi forced another step, snapping more of its cordages along the way. It was stopped in its track by a blast of the Daytime Tiger. Its face imploded, sand erupting through the back of its head. Tenten watched in worry for her sensei. The fifth, sixth, now the seventh gate. No matter how she looked at it, the end was near.

Before the ichibi could recover from its deformity, an enlarged monkey king Enma tackled it back down. Hiruzen sank the earth, trapping the ichibi within a bed of mud.

Breathing heavily, Hiruzen forced himself to stand, going so far as to harden earth around his legs. As Hokage, he must stand.

Drained, Homura and Koharu stayed on the sidelines, counting down to the inevitable. The rain would soon stop. Their defensive lines would crumble one by one. But the power of a bijū was inexhaustive. It was immortal, and it would never be stopped. Only sealed.

"Can't you do it?" Sakura asked the ancient kunoichi.

Uzumaki Mito stood at the precipice, eyes flickering across the ruins below, the struggles and screams.

"No, I cannot," she said.

When Sakura crushed their bodies, she crushed the talismen controlling them. It returned their autonomy and their wisdom, but their physical forms remained a death's shadow of life. The sealing technique needed live blood, a breathing descent of the Uzumaki lineage.

Naruto froze.

"M-my name is Naruto." In the billion times he recited this line, this had to be the weakest, almost fragile. "Uzumaki Naruto," he said, slowly raising his hand.

Then, "I am an Uzumaki. I am Uzumaki Naruto," he repeated, gaining power. "I am an Uzumaki, _Uzumaki Naruto_."

His voice cracked. "I am… I'm part of your clan, right obaa-san? My blood is your blood?" His family was her family?

Sakura watched Naruto crumble in a way she had never seen before. His smile had never been more wide, his eyes never been more hopeful, and both never more pleading and damaged. She bit her lips, wishing he could take this rise without ever taking the fall.

Mito examined the boy. She could not deny him his heritage, and the kyūbi inside him was evidence of the strength of his blood. Her fingers grazed past the scars on his cheeks. However…

"Your blood is only half," she said. "You alone are not sufficient."

"Then we can't perform the sealing," Sasuke clarified.

"We can," she said, unfazed. "With a second half."

At those words, Naruto's expression faltered. Sakura stepped in. "I'm sorry, but there has to be some other way. If chakra is the problem, maybe we can pull the kyūbi again and-"

"That suggestion serves exactly one being in this party, and that being is not human."

Sakura stopped, eyes wide, as Mito continued coldly, "Make your presence scarce."

At the command, the whispers inside Sakura's mind quieted. She held her head tightly, eyes snapped shut. She was not a Yamanaka. Her modified version of their shintenshin had been crude at best. And now, it was apparent she did not return to her body alone.

"The kyūbi is corrupted," Mito said. "A jinchūriki is a vessel to protect its power from the world, not a weapon to unleash onto it."

"Okay, but how do we protect everyone from _that _power," Naruto asked, jerking a thumb toward the ichibi. "I don't know what it was like during your time but… but if the technique needs Uzumaki… well, I'm the only Uzumaki in the village." It was something he tried to say with his usual pride, but his voice betrayed him.

"No," Mito said simply.

Anko raised an eyebrow. "No?"

Mito returned her gaze to the village. "There are two."

.

Karin, you are so stupid. You had everything, so why didn't you run. Why didn't you take everything and fucking _run_.

She should have sacrificed that other guy. He seemed stupid enough for it, and eager too. Instead, they were three hundred meters cleared of the gate. Meanwhile, here she was, still inside this damned village, staring at the eclipsing form of the beast. It advanced another step, now a mere intersection away.

Time. Time had made her its target now, the clock of death ticking. The question was whether she could stall long enough for the group to get away. That guy was fast. He could carry them some good distance with only a few seconds.

In a flicker, she stood atop a leaning water tower. Her glasses tucked securely at the neck of her shirt. If she did this right, they might still stand a chance.

Tenten took the brunt of another hit from the ichibi's claws, sent halfway across the village along with the rest of her trap. She would have been impaled by a jagged support beam below had her reflexes kicked in. Her body flipped positions, hands at the tip of the beam, her legs arched forward. With a push, she rolled down the length of the architecture, before finally unraveling in a break.

A sudden whiteness drew her attention, beaming with the intensity of a lighthouse. A hikaridama had burst in front of the ichibi's eye, the brightness freezing it place, tail stiff.

Sound came next. It was unlike any type of detonation Tenten had ever heard. It was higher-pitched than those of an explosion tag, and at a volume that became indistinguishable from silence. For the briefest of seconds, rain droplets suspended mid-air, the sonic shockwave piercing through air, through water, through cement and steel and the very earth itself.

Inside the carriage, everyone covered their ears as instructed, some children with strips of fabric wrapped around their heads. It was not enough to protect them from all the vibrations, but enough to ease the hurt. When they looked up, the ichibi was no longer there. Its form had melted, a pile of wet sand in its place.

"Onee-chan did it," one child whispered, huddled against the arms of his grandfather. From under, Lee smiled.

Jiraiya turned around to a strange sight. A boy was dashing towards them, a tortoise carriage on his back.

"Hold on," he told Gamabunta with a pat. "Looks like we have one more set of passengers."

When they arrived, Ningame transformed back into his original form. The tortoise summon nodded at the toad boss. "All yours."

Gamabunta regarded the cluster of fearful civilians. Then, grunting, he lowered his head, mouth opened. They stood, uncertain by the gesture, until a figure emerged from inside. Chōji waved at them to come forth. "Come on, hurry!"

When Karin lowered the handkerchief from her eyes, Gamabunta had already leapt away, through the forest, down the valleys, carrying his passengers to the landscapes far away. She unplugged the noise cancellers from her ears, ignoring the blood on them. She wiped her nose.

A hand touched her shoulder.

"They made it?"

Karin remained seated on the collapsed roof. "Yeah, they made it."

Together, they watched the ichibi slowly reform, some resemblance of a tail and paw taking shape.

"We're fucked, though." There was a degree of resignation in her voice.

Tenten dropped by her side. "Too bad we'll never know who'd have won the tournament."

Karin propped a fist against her cheek. "Too bad I hadn't ordered another bowl of katsudon."

"I'll miss pork roast."

"Me too."

They gave an unison sigh. Then, laughing, they leaned into one another, unfazed by the thundering and howls.

"Please gods, give me manjū!" Tenten shouted into the rain.

"I want anpan!"

"Tsuon'youpin!"

"Okonomiyaki!"

"Sesame ball!"

"Dango!"

"Ramen...?"

Both their eyes snapped open. The intruder of their conversation gave a guilty smile. Instead of sand, of death, Team 7 stood before them. They cleared the path of a new figure.

Or should Tenten say, an old figure. She stared in awe when Uzumaki Mito made her grace, stopping in front of her newly made companion. Confused, Karin tried not to pull away when the mysterious woman touched her cheek.

"We are now sufficient."


	10. From Earth to Heaven

Her glasses were broken. Karin could not see the person speaking to her. But if she could see, she expected to see that same smile back at the Forest of Death. Rain was soaking down to her bones, but something about his aura seeped even deeper.

The words coming out his mouth shot by, not a single pause in breath. He was not giving her time to absorb all this information. Then again, neither was the sand beast. What she did manage to grab out of his babble was survival. They had a chance for survival.

Unable to contain himself, Naruto grabbed her hand. He half-expected her to retract or push him away, but she did not. Karin did not react at all, not until she was done with thought. Only then did her fingers enclosed around his. "Okay," she whispered.

Sakura and Sasuke cleared to the side, as Naruto joined Karin in a circle. Together they sat, her palm pressed against his, his against hers. Then, as per instruction, their fingers began to weave and interlock, one sign after the next of a long incantation.

Ox, tiger, hare, rat, bird...

Sakura watched anxiously, wincing when one of Naruto's hands faltered. The incantation broke. Unfazed, Mito restarted from the beginning.

This was bad. Hand seals were one of Naruto's weak points. In combat, he flipped that weakness into a strength by inventing shortcut seals. But those had been developed from practice and intuition, the pulses of instinct. This was different. Sakura could tell from the current sequences that this jutsu was on a whole other level of sophistication.

Sasuke shared her concern when the incantation broke for the third time. They exchanged a look. Sakura received his non-verbal request, already creating a window with her thumbs. She waited for Naruto to fumble again.

He never did.

Dog, bird, horse, bird, ram...

Naruto's eyes remained closed, not in concentration, but in peace. Sakura lowered her hands.

Ram, ox, hare, ram...

Sasuke studied Naruto, then the opposing kunoichi. It was her. Sometime during the ritual, Karin had trusted him to follow, and Naruto had trusted her to lead.

"Kai!"

Both their hands slammed into one another.

Naruto's eyes snapped open, his breath choked out of him. Karin gasped, controlling her own shudders. Through their palms, the paths of their chakra connected, their energies beginning to sync, flowing from her body to his, from his to hers.

Mito turned to the others. "The sealing will require a medium."

Unfortunately for them, only a few relics remained in the world that had the capability of containing a bijū. Even if there existed one in Konoha, it was trashed now.

"What about a scroll?"

Attention fell on Tenten, who waved an empty scroll. All weapons collectors had to be creative with storage and space, and when things had refused to fit in this dimension, she learned how to stuff them in another one.

Sakura was both intrigued by and skeptical of the idea. She did not recall any historical evidence of a bijū stored within an intertemporal pocket, though it was not theoretically impossible. Mass, energy, these concepts were all interchangeable.

But even then, they faced another problem. A kunai was one thing, but an ordinary scroll could never contain energy of that magnitude.

Tenten rubbed her nose. "We can use more than one?" she tried. Split the load up.

"You underestimate the bijū," Mito said. "Add all of the scrolls in the world, and you will still be trying to contain an ocean within a spoon."

Everyone grew silent.

Sakura rolled one of Tenten's scrolls in hand. She compared it to another one of identical size, first at parallel, then crossed at the center. Maybe, just maybe…

Sakura looked up. Sealing was not her speciality but, "Instead of adding, what if we multiplied?"

At Tenten's look, Sakura explained. An intertemporal pocket can be conceptualized as a fold in the space-time continuum. If you wanted layers, you can, say, take one hundred sheets and fold each all once. _Or_ you can take one sheet and fold it a hundred times.

"You want to see if we can do a pocket within a pocket," Tenten said, genuinely impressed.

Grinning, Sakura nodded. A scroll within a scroll, a seal within a seal. With the power of exponentiation, they could fit an ocean inside a spoon, no problem.

Which left one last condition. The bijū needed to be rendered still during the sealing. Sasuke understood that was his cue. He flickered out, joining forces with Anko on the front lines.

Tenten unravelled a scroll. To Sakura, "So you want first crack at creating this uber-scroll?"

"You've got the practice," Sakura admitted.

"And you've got the theory."

Homura knelt before their befallen Hokage. Hiruzen's gaze was lost to the skies, his lips in soft murmurs. Koharu realized he was citing the old Konoha creeds. A bijūdama was coagulating. She closed her eyes, reciting her own prayers.

Her eyes snapped open at the sound of a crash.

"WHOO!"

Anko laughed as her snakes crushed the ichibi, choking the bijūdama right back down its own esophagus.

After years of dormancy, the curse seal at her neck broke free, and she as well. Unadulterated power flowed through her veins, spiraling like tattoos across her skin without restraint, without guilt. She fought, bathed in thrill. In rush. In freedom. In the mind-transcending bliss that her former mentor had blessed her with, the gift that she had reclaimed.

Her teeth glinted as sharp as her dagger as she flung herself in the air and lunged again, her jacket fluttering wildly in the storm.

While the ichibi cowered and trashed under her assaults, Sasuke weaved across the battle, wire thread across the air, up, down, front, back, netting the bijū from every angle. When done, he ascended to the highest peak he could find.

Water dripped down his hair. Koharu had brought down rain, because rain softened sand. But water and earth were defensive natures. From his satchel, Sasuke withdrew his last arrow.

It was about time they went on the offensive.

Naruto breathed heavily, as did Karin. The push and pull between them had become a spiral, a whirlpool of chakra spinning between them. Karin's hair whipped in all directions. The straps of his jacket beat against him. "Uh, guys, think we're about ready!"

Sakura felt Tenten pull her, before she pulled Tenten. To summon and to be summoned, together they traversed from one layer to the next, the evens and the odds. Both floated outside space, outside time, a rope strung between their bodies, preventing them from being forever lost inside null.

With renewed strength, Sakura dived even deeper. It was almost done.

Sasuke narrowed his eyes, bow strung.

Nothing was without weakness. Fire may not burn it, and wind may not cut it, but he would like to see how the ichibi handled _this_.

Homura watched a single arrow soar, straight and true, higher and higher, above the ruins, above the beast, above the sky and into the heart of the heaven itself.

The heavens responded.

A bolt of lightning speared down, through the wire and into the body of the beast. The ichibi screeched, black, white, soft, hard, ripping, spiking. When its torment finally quieted, there remained but some pitiful piece of petrification, damaged and deformed, a skin of steaming fractal scars.

Koharu stood, speechless, as adamantine chains glowed in divinity, surreal amidst the storm, binding the ichibi prisoner. The pull started slow, but gained momentum.

Naruto and Karin held onto each other in bone-tight grips, their combined chakra drilling. On either end of the scroll were Sakura and Tenten, struggling to keep it in place as chains flew through at dizzying speeds, pulling the bijū inside, inscriptions flowing across the parchment. Sakura gritted her teeth, heels dug in place, as the sealing stretched on what seemed an eternity.

Then, the scroll retracted itself and fell. It hit the ground with a clunk, rolling before coming to an anticlimactic stop. There it rested, radioactively hot.

It was over.

A century seemed to have passed. Back to back, shoulder to shoulder, Team 7 sat, each of their faces fatigued, aged. Sakura passed the scroll to Sasuke, who then passed it to Naruto. To the scroll, Naruto gave a weak grin.

"Sayonara…" His arm fell limp. "...sucker."

Meanwhile, Sakura stared at a broken billboard ahead, caught between a collapsed telephone pole and unrecognizable mass of concrete slabs. The colors on the billboard were uncharacteristically happy, the bright yellows and blues of some comic superhero.

It reminded her of the little boys she had seen on her morning jog, how they laughed as they chased one another in the streets, arms stretched and imitating battle noises. It reminded her of the Academy, time rewinded to six months ago. Back when she was taking notes inside the classroom, exchanging lunches with Ino, walking home alongside Naruto, arguing over whose turn it was to cook. Back when she was just starting to feel the tiniest rays of a future, confident enough in her grades to secure a genin position in this cut-throat industry.

Back when she wanted nothing more than to grab the bottom rung of the military, hang on long enough to get government payroll. Her goal had been to work over the next six to eight years, be financially stable across her teenage years, until the day she turned twenty, of which she would then get married and retire as a housewife. If she was lucky, Ino would pull a few strings and set her up with one of her clan's associates, allowing her to get indoctrinated into the Yamanaka. If she was super lucky, her future husband would have parents who were kind and accepting.

But that was six months ago.

Before the morning Naruto came home blood-stained and bleary-faced, his nails digging into his abdomen as if he wanted to rip himself open from the inside out. Before she labored over a shovel, digging a grave for their jōnin instructor in some bog-ridden land far away. Before the barrage of abuses throw onto her body, and she understood intimately the meaning behind survival of the fittest.

Survival.

Once a mercy, the rain now did nothing but drain her of warmth. Sakura imagined a blanket pulled around her. She was snuggled under Ino's covers, inside the protective embrace of her best friend. And when morning came, she would rub her eyes, trudge into the kitchen, where she would be greeted by the exasperated sighs of her mother and the insufferable jokes of her father. She could already smell the rice.

.

The rain had dried to a drizzle. Rivulets trailed down the cracks in stone, down the remnants of the cliffside monument.

Kurenai dislodged another boulder, desperately trying to clear a path amidst the cave-in. "Can anyone hear me?" she called again. "Please, say something if you can hear me!"

Before, the horror lied in screams and screeches, blasts and explosions, of the time bomb that was the ichibi. Now, the horror lied in silence.

"Someone, anyone!" she yelled, sinking to her knees.

Asuma had gone quiet long ago, unblinking. It was no use. Before them was a collapse of one thousand tons of hard rock. The engineers of the village had designed the protection shelter to save the children. Instead, it had buried them all.

Kurenai inhaled a shuddered breath, before her fist clenched. With greater vigour, she stabbed a splintered plank into the gap between two boulders, pushing onto the make-shift lever. "Can anyone hear me! Someone!"

When it became apparent Kurenai had turned hysterical, Asuma pulled her way. The rocks were full of her handprints, red and brown. She struggled in his grip, screaming harder.

"No! We have to get them out. NO!" Her elbow struck his ribs, and she freed herself of his restraint, running back. "If you can hear me, say something!"

"Kurenai, stop-"

"We're here, just say something!"

Asuma grabbed both her shoulders, forcing her to look at him.

Whatever he wanted to say had left him. Mascara stained her face, her expression open and raw. She had become untrained, imbued with the same naivety of her youth.

"Kurenai," he whispered. His mouth was dry. He had no way of saying this without breaking her. "Kurenai, they… they're..."

"... ere..."

Both turned to the collapse. After a heart-stopping pause, the noise proved to not be imagination.

"...there…!"

Udon cowered as Konohamaru kicked with all his might, trying to pry free another piece of collapsed rubble. "Anyone out there!" he yelled again. "Anyone!"

He fell back, sweat trailing down his temples, delirious from exertion. Moegi watched him force himself back up, making another call to the outside, banging his fists. "We need help! It's an emergency!"

Biting her lips, Moegi clutched the hand of their teacher. "T-tell me," she said. "Tell me another lecture, Iruka-sensei."

Iruka gave a weak smile. He had no more lectures. He recited all the ones he knew.

Moegi refused to believe that. There were always more lectures. This was Iruka-sensei, who had prepared years and years of course materials, memorized by heart what he would say each day on top of the podium. He definitely knew more lectures than this, and she wanted to hear them. She wanted to hear them all, some now, some tomorrow, some here, some back in the classroom. But every last lecture he had written in that notebook of his, she wanted to hear them. Every last homework he had planned to assigned to them, she wanted to receive them all.

She held his hand tighter. "I know! History. We haven't covered history yet. Tell me something about history, Iruka-sensei."

In her panic, Moegi failed to notice the blood down her jaw, the gash tearing across the delicate skin of her freckled cheeks. Only Iruka did, his expression tender. Gathering the last of his strength, he forced a murmur, and she excitedly leaned closer in response.

"Treat… don't let it… scar."

Confused, Moegi waited. But no matter how long she waited, no more words came. His hand had gone limp in her grip.

"No, no, I don't understand, Iruka-sensei," she pleaded. "I have a question, Iruka-sensei. See, my hand is raised. I still have a question, Iruka-sensei."

Her cries were accompanied by those of the other children. Though quiet before, they spoke now.

"I have a question too."

"Me too."

"My hand is raised, Iruka-sensei."

"Make me answer something, Iruka-sensei."

"You haven't assigned homework yet, Iruka-sensei."

Their voices rose in a chorus, wet and sniffled, louder and louder, as if making enough noise would wake their teacher up, and he would come back to scold them.

Asuma made lash after lash, his knuckles dripping, as he tore deeper into the tunnel, deeper towards the source of the noise. The barricades between them thinned, until a final crack and break. All heads turned toward the stream of light.

Kurenai's heart stopped. Huddled by a dying lamp were at least three classes of Academy students, each of their faces dirty and scratched but animate with life. During the implosion, the plate of bedrock beneath them had shifted, sliding the protection chamber deeper into the earth. Two-thirds of the space had buried and collapsed as a result, but the remaining walls managed to lock together at just the right angle to form a cavity. Her eyes landed on the figure the children were surrounding.

"My god."

The students cleared aside to let Kurenai through. She knelt before Iruka, her gaze trailing down his torso to the mountain of crushing rubble. Under the lamp, his complexion was ashen, his pupils nonresponsive.

"Help," Moegi begged. "Iruka-sensei is hurt. Please help."

Kurenai shook, her palm damp from the sweat on his skin. "Come on, stay with us," she said, urging Iruka awake. To Asuma, "Help me get him out."

Determined, Konohamaru joined the excavation, working alongside them to clear the rubble. His attention fell on the audience, the whimpers and sniffs of his classmates. "Instead of staring, you can _help_!"

His words jolted a few, froze others, but all remained hesitant until a scuffing sound. Knelt by Konohamaru's side was Udon, desperately raking with his fingers, tossing one fistful of pebbles and rocks after another.

Tears and snot dripped down Udon's face, his voice choked as he repeated, "Must help Iruka-sensei, must help Iruka-sensei…" When everything was coming down, he had been the one who failed to react fast enough. It was his fault. It was all his fault Iruka-sensei was hurt. His teacher had saved him, and now he had to save his teacher.

The inertia broke, as every student joined, digging and prying. Moegi continued to talk. "Help's here now, Iruka-sensei. We're getting you out." She squeezed his hand harder. "Just hang on. Please just hang on..."

Everything moved so slowly then, as she watched the lunging of a hand, the wedging of a boulder, the forming of a syllable on the lip. Why did everything have to move so slowly, Moegi thought, as she felt her teacher's hand colder and colder in hers. Help had arrived, but what was the good…

Despite all her efforts to keep her eyes dry so far, a tear was rolling down, crossing the gash on her cheek.

What was the good of help if Iruka-sensei was already...

Udon fell back in a yelp. All the other children did as well, with Kurenai and Asuma frozen. Moegi stared wide-eyed.

Light pierced through from beneath the rubble, as Iruka's body became coated in a glow.

Across the ruins of the village, through the forests, beams of light pierced into the clearing skies. Tsume retracted her hand from Kuromaru's fur. Kin and Zaku glanced at the teammate in slung over their shoulders. Baki lifted his student into his arms, the heavens crowning her a halo.

Homura knelt faithfully beside the glowing body of his old friend, while Koharu sought out the caster of this jutsu. By a collapsed water tower, she found her, as holy and everlasting as Koharu remembered from her youth.

Mito elevated to the heavens, coated by a surge of chakra, the tips of her once vibrant hair whitening to chalk, her nails and skin dissipating into the light, despite all of Naruto's shouts for her to wait. He still had questions. He still had so many questions he needed to ask her.

However, there would be no wait. Her time had extended beyond its proper bounds; theirs had been shortened. Her clan were servants of the shinigami, the gatekeeper of the cycle, the one who joins the beginning with the end. The wheel had been disrupted, and balance must now be restored.

If Naruto had questions, it is not the dead who will answer, but the living.

When Iruka opened his eyes, he found himself crushed under a hundred hugs, bombarded by a hundred simultaneous voices. He gave a dazed smile. Never in all his years of teaching had class participation been this perfect.

.

Hanabi's fingertips stopped before the glow. It was no use. Her posture loosened, as she watch the unconscious enemy nin be pulled back from the brink of death. The jutsu was nothing short of a miracle, an antithesis of time itself.

She turned to her father, awaiting his word. She had failed. The battalion had escaped, as did the kunoichi who had interfered. All that remained was a sacrificial infantryman, and she could not even deal the final blow.

Hiashi did not share her disappointment. Once a towering forest, the land now lied as flat as the plains of Kusagakure. Yet amidst the decimation, his daughter stood, unbent, unblemished. This was merely a prelude, and she had proven herself ready for the main performance: the war.

.

Water dripped down stalactites. Static flickered, revealing the ninth and final silhouette.

"All of us... Now this must be good."

"The invasion of Konohagakure is over. The village is no more."

"Ha, Orochimaru pulled through for once, yeah?"

"Not quite. The militia itself is well in tact. They have managed to seal the ichibi. Their next play is clear."

"Then our strategy must change to adapt to theirs."

"Meaning…"

"We move now."

The ring dimmed. A hand reached for the sugegasa, tilting it to uncover a view of the skies above, the sun returned once more, beaming of a false halcyon.

Uzumaki Mito may have refused to play the game, but the rest of the world remained oh so eager, the click of one tile after the next.

The countdown has begun.


End file.
